iZombie is a new show on The CW.
I like the comic book style credits they use to do scene transitions and some effects that would be too costly to work out. It’s a great idea. It makes me believe this may be based on a comic. I didn’t bother to look up whether it is or not.
At the first commercial break, this episode has already shown us a sex act, and then described it again in a recapped vision memory. It was a very sexy first chapter, even if described by a zombie. They’re grabbing our attention early it seems. On the older prime time shows, the sex scenes are in the 45 minute chapter. It’s actually funny if you go channel surfing at 9:45 through network prime time. Everyone is in bed… including much of the audience it seems.
It occurs to me that this show is hitting a younger age demographics for a cop show. All too often, the police solving murder mystery shows are appealing to an older audience. NCIS is even jokingly referred to appeal to the same audience MATLOCK used to. A much older crowd. When I heard that, I stopped watching it, just to appear younger. iZombie is more like Nancy Drew than NCIS. Of course, that sentence certainly doesn’t make me feel young at all. Nobody young knows who Nancy Drew is anymore.
Teenagers don’t watch cop shows. They watch Zombie shows, and zombie shows with sex scenes may broaden their audience. The fact they solve crime makes them almost like a super hero with special powers – not a cop show.
In the second act, we see the Zombie’ special powers. She not only gets visions and memories of the dead person who’s brains she eats, but she actually develops bits of their personality. In this week’s show, she’s learned to appreciate art, and women. It starts off quite subtle at first, especially if you didn’t see episode one. I almost missed the bit where she was enamoured with a women the dead man had slept with. By the time of commercial break, they’ve gone past the subtle, and made it more obvious for the whole audience by explaining it in the narrative. She even implied that some of the powers she earns stay with her. She can now speak Spanish, and paint.
As a 50 year old man, I’ve lived a lot of generations and seen how society picks new things to learn and improve upon each decade or so. From before I was born, we started figuring out things society was doing wrong, and we try to correct them. In many cases, this kind of change is slow, and still ongoing. Classic social blunders like slavery and race bigotry, rights for women, and more recently, gay rights. We’re improving, even if slowly. Sadly bad parents teach their kids bad habits, so it’s taking more than one full cycle of everyone dyeing off to eradicate bad behavior. A current hop topic of evil is rape, and in this episode, our third sex scene; more of an attempted rape is tackled. A handsome man moves past consent in such a casual way, as to lead me to believe this is way more common than most people understand.
It was this scene that actually inspired me to pause the playback and start this blog. It’s only quite recently that society has chosen to highlight a rape culture as our newest wrong to right. Media is strongly doing it’s best to bring to my attention how horrible men can be. With luck, scenes like this will help start a conversation or two, especially if boyfriends and girlfriends watch shows like this together.
Since I’m writing while the show is paused, I have not yet seen how this attempted rape resolves itself in iZombie. I hope she doesn’t go “full on zombie mode” and just kill this guy, and eat his brains, however I suspect a lot of women wish they could. I can’t fully imagine how being raped must feel but I have been bullied before, and held down powerless to do anything but panic. I will say it does change your perspective on life and trust. There are few worse fears than being helpless in the control of an attacker. I hate knowing that kind of evil is so common.
I have to wonder whether watching it happen like this in so many shows and movies, is working for or against the idea. I suppose it alerts me the problem is far worse than they may realize, but whether it deters rapists or enables them is yet to be determined.
I unpause and watch.
She doesn’t kill him. She defends herself, hurts him slightly, and runs away. I fear that is the real problem. While I don’t 100% guarantee that a rape attempt always justifies a life changing death sentence or imprisonment for all, I do believe a suitable hard punishment should be exacted on anyone who bullies and overpowers, sexual and/or otherwise. In my universe crimes against trust are the worst crimes of all. Society needs to be able to trust ton survive, and the more it deteriorates, the more we all lose.
The last scene is used to further the overall love storyline the series will eventually persue. Her comic style narrative is written to take the episode and relate to the many struggling teens who may feel of themselves as a zombie, free of emotion.
I’ll keep watching.
