IGN discussion:
CW & DC Comics' "iZombie" (From Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas) official thread
- Thread starter satam55
- Start date
@hexagram23 @Emperor_ReinScarf @Jello Biafra @prophecypro @Mook @SoundbwoyHave y'all seen Rob Thomas' short-lived Starz sitcom "Party Down" with Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, Ken Marino, Ryan Hansen, Martin Starr, Jane Lynch, & etc.?
I'm 4 episodes into the first season & this joint good. I can't believe I waited all these years to get into the show.
Last edited:
Have y'all seen Rob Thomas' short-lived Starz sitcom "Party Down" with Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, Ken Marino, Ryan Hansen, Martin Starr, Jane Lynch, & etc.?
I'm 4 episodes into the first season & this joint good. I can't believe I waited all these years to get into the show.
I've heard of it but never seen it.
Fred.
never heard of it
Have y'all seen Rob Thomas' short-lived Starz sitcom "Party Down" with Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, Ken Marino, Ryan Hansen, Martin Starr, Jane Lynch, & etc.?
I'm 4 episodes into the first season & this joint good. I can't believe I waited all these years to get into the show.
Have y'all seen Rob Thomas' short-lived Starz sitcom "Party Down" with Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, Ken Marino, Ryan Hansen, Martin Starr, Jane Lynch, & etc.?
I'm 4 episodes into the first season & this joint good. I can't believe I waited all these years to get into the show.
never heardof it
Have y'all seen Rob Thomas' short-lived Starz sitcom "Party Down" with Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, Ken Marino, Ryan Hansen, Martin Starr, Jane Lynch, & etc.?
I'm 4 episodes into the first season & this joint good. I can't believe I waited all these years to get into the show.
Heard it was great but it got canceled so I only watched one episode.
Pinyapplesuckas
He's A Good Man
keep seeing ads for this on tv. looks like pure trash 
2 Up 2 Down
Veteran
Might re-read the series to refresh my memory.
Eating Brains on the Set of iZombie
We visited the set of iZombie to talk to the cast about the DC Comics-based series - and to eat some brains.
13 MAR 2015 BY ERIC GOLDMAN
Premiering on March 17th from executive producers Rob Thomas (creator of Veronica Mars) and Diane Ruggiero (also a Veronica Mars alum), iZombie, and based on the DC / Vertigo comic book, iZombie takes a very different approach to the undead than your typical zombie story.
The main character, Liv (Rose McIver) is a zombie, yes, but in this show, there are stages to zombie-ism. And as long as Liv can keep feeding on brains, she can keep her faculties about her and at least appear to be a normal, albeit odd, human being… though if was to go too long without that specific sustenance, well, things could get bad.
In addition, Liv – who works in the morgue of a hospital, in order to gain access to what she needs -- discovers that when she feeds on a brain, she temporarily gains memories and abilities from that person. This ends up becoming the engine for the show’s weekly stories, as she works with her boss, Ravi (Rahul Kohli) and police detective Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) to solve crimes, using the knowledge she now has.
On the Vancouver set of the iZombie last fall, McIver (Power Rangers RPM, Masters of Sex, Once Upon a Time) remarked, “It’s funny when you get given a script and it’s like, oh, Liv has eaten this brain this time and these are all the things you can do! And I’m like, I never auditioned showing that I could be a concert pianist or whatever it may give me! So it’s been quite a wonderful test and I have managed to learn a ton of different skills. It’s a bit of an actor’s dream to be able to wear a different hat each episode and learn these different things.”
On top of that, McIver noted, “There’s definitely a very physical component. I used to dance growing up and I’ve done quite a few shows with a lot of action in them so I like that.”
McIver’s past as a Power Ranger has ended up being beneficial, as the Australian actress revealed, “To be honest, it has been super helpful with some of the action sequences. We trained with an amazing Japanese stunt team for Power Rangers. When they came here they were like, ‘Are you sure you’re going to be able to do one right jab? Is that going to be okay?’ I was like, ‘I think I’ll be okay!’ So we’ve been lucky with it actually.”
Only Ravi knows the truth about Liv and Kohli said he didn’t feel there was concern that he couldn’t keep that secret, explaining, “To him, it’s the most incredible, medical spectacle, so there’s this enjoyment of this secret that he has with Liv. It’s something that he’s working on and I don’t think there’s a need to share it so much as there’s a need to understand it. It’s more about understanding, about treating it, about curing it, and stopping it from breaking out and things like that. I don’t think it’s something on the tip of his tongue. But it’s something he’s fascinated by and excited by.”
On the flip side, Liv’s ex-fiancé Major (Robert Buckley) has no idea what Live has truly become, believing she managed to survive a horrific mass murder (what was in truth a zombie attack) and changed dramatically in the wake of it. Noted Buckley, “He doesn’t know what’s happened to her. He just think she’s been through this traumatic event. Then all of a sudden, it’s like everything changes. The relationship's off, she’s really distant and they’ve been together for eight years so you would just see he’s a guy who’s going through heartache. But he’s doing it in a very honorable way, so I think, initially, he’s a very sympathetic character because you’re like, ‘Oh, that would be a bummer.’ He’s being sweet about it. He’s not being selfish or childish, but then that quickly changes. They don’t keep him in that lane long before he starts venturing off and getting his own little world and his own life.”
In the meantime, Liv and Ravi tell Clive that Liv is psychic to explain how much she knows about the cases they're investigating. Asked if Clive really buys that, Goodwin remarked, “So far, her psychic visions are leading to collars and so far that’s all he cares about. He’s happy about that. He’s making a name for himself at the police force. He’s always had potential but he’s kind of getting there a little faster now. I think everybody believed in him but he needed that edge, so it gives him an edge. So as long as she keeps having the Miss Cleo visions and things like that, he’s with it so he’s all in.”
One amusing thing about being on the set of a TV show where the main character has to constantly eat brains on camera is everyone can’t help but wonder… how are the brains? On iZombie, Liv, who discovers her taste buds are substantially dulled, tries to add to her “meals” by covering them in hot sauce and the actress laughed, “It’s been trial and error," as far as what she's actually eating. "We really got it down to something a lot better than it was. It’s agar agar, a coconut kind of gelatin. The weak spot is the hot sauce which we have used V8, tomato juice kind of stuff, vegetable juice. And that with gelatin is just a combination you’re never going to love. But it’s fine. It’s definitely not unbearable and I have spit buckets on hand. People are very patient with me. What is quite fun is that each episode, Liv spices up how she wants to eat her brains. She doesn’t eat them all the same way. She might blend them or have them in a taco. We get to kind of see how she’s still trying to have a varied and interesting diet despite the quite strange requirement.”
It should be noted that all of us journalists visiting the iZombie set that day got to try some “brain” – and I found it to have a decent taste! Okay, I was in the minority, I must admit. But look, if you like your brains a little crispy and sweet, then the set of iZombie has what you're looking for!
Even though iZombie makes notable story changes from the comics -- including the lead character's name -- McIver said the inspiration was still strong. She recalled, “As soon as I got the job and I was flying up here, pretty immediately and kindly, I got sent all of the graphic novels. They are brilliant. It took me a long time to adjust to reading them. The only graphic novel I read growing up was Sandman. My brother gave me those when I was about 13, the Sandman Chronicles. I’m not super familiar with the format so it’s a little bit of an adjustment. I’m a real novel reader. But I just really enjoyed it. I think that her character very much is brought into this show as well in terms of being pretty sassy. She doesn’t take too much bulls**t from people. She’s vulnerable but she’s not a pushover by any stretch. She’s not your damsel in distress. She’s a bit of a warrior and dealing with people that most people -- well hopefully no one in the world -- deals with as far as I know. I think that the comics established something so wonderful, that we really wanted to draw form that everything that we could. Obviously a TV show is such a different format and certain things are increased or certain things are not explored the same way on the show. That’s very much been a part of the process and present in all our minds.”
Regarding the more loose adaptation iZombie offers of the comic, Kohli remarked, “In terms of the comic book adaptation, this is something that came up during Comic-Con. Obviously, we are a comic book adaptation, but not in the stricter sense. The best way to explain it, which was said, was we’re more Wanted than Watchmen. It has the heart and the roots of the comic book but it doesn’t face it shot for shot. It doesn’t follow that. It takes ideas and goes in its own direction. I know a lot of people, especially fans of comics, when they hear that, when they hear that their property’s being adapted, they want to hear that it’s line for line. Like it’s literally, ‘I want to see the comic panels moved over.’ With this one, I think fans of the comic will still relate to that character that they love from the comic book. It’s still there. It’s still intact. It still has that heart. But it’s different. It’s another version. It’s something to enjoy along side that comic book to enjoy both mediums rather than having the same thing just translated.”
Kohli and Buckley quickly became friends making iZombie, discovering plenty of shared interests, including a passion for video games, that has begun to bleed into the show and their characters. Recalled Kohli, “We got some Magic the Gathering cards the other day and we were just sitting around playing them. I don’t know what we were doing. But you find someone hears about it and the next thing you know, we read a script and it’s like oh they put [that in]? That’s cool.” He added that, so far, though, “We’re not actually playing Magic The Gathering in the show.”
Buckley chimed in, with a laugh, “We’re going to have to lie about this interview and say we never agreed to that. But we were playing Diablo 3, the new version that came out, and we got a call that was like, “What would be some characters you'd be into?” We end up playing Diablo 3 in the [show]. It’ll be funny. People will be like, ‘Could you imagine those guys actually doing those things?” And we’re actually doing those things.”
Regarding the show’s offbeat sensibility, Goodwin said, “I think tonally, it’s amazing how they found a balance of keeping the humor but then the cases are taken dead seriously. They’re for real. Also what Liv goes through with eating those brains, in terms of being somebody who’s kind of disconnected with her emotional faculties and stuff because she’s a zombie and she’s kind of distanced herself from reality and the person she used to be. But when she eats these brains, when she picks up these particular people’s traits and stuff. For example, if somebody’s a great painter or whatever like that then she’s able to see colors the way that person would see the world. And her experience through that, while solving this case, I’m dealing with this issue of, 'Isn’t this beautiful? The colors of this and this and that.' I have no idea why she’s talking about the colors or the décor of things but it came from that dead person’s brain or whatever traits that they have. In terms of balancing the different tones, yeah it does go from comedy to seriousness. But the cases are pretty grounded. You never feel like this is a stupid case. Clive takes it dead seriously and he jokes within that framework.”
The cast of iZombie clearly got along very well, and McIver explained the friendly atmosphere on set, while also giving us all a delightful new term to use (we assume it’s well known in Australia?) when she declared, “I feel like I really landed with my bum in the butter here! It’s very fortunate.”
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/03/13/eating-brains-on-the-set-of-izombie
Last edited:
VERONICA MARS CREATOR ROB THOMAS ON WHAT TO EXPECT FROM IZOMBIE
The Veronica Mars creator on the balance of humor, horror and, of course, brains
16 MAR 2015 BY ERIC GOLDMAN
Rob Thomas, the creator of Veronica Mars and co-creator of Party Down, returns to TV on March 17th with iZombie. Inspired by the DC/Vertigo comic of the same name, the series stars Rose McIver (Once Upon a Time, Masters of Sex) as Liv, who’s been transformed into a zombie – but one who still has her wits about her, as long as she continues to eat human brains. And Liv soon discovers that eating those brains – which she gets via her job in a morgue – actually temporarily gives her the knowledge and skills of those she’s consuming.
I sat down with Thomas to discuss iZombie, the comic book-inspired visuals the show includes and his response to those cynical about another zombie show – especially one taking a humorous approach.
IGN: What were your first discussions like about iZombie?
Thomas: I had to be talked into it and it had nothing to do with the material, the comic book. Susan Rovner, the head of development at Warner Brothers, came to me with it. Unlike my shows that are things that I pitch and passion projects of mine, this was Susan Rovner bringing me this comic book and saying, “You need to do this.” And at the time I was editing the Veronica Mars movie and I had just sold two pilot scripts. I did not have the time or the energy and I kept trying to tell her no and she really would not take no for an answer. Her pitch was, “You don’t even have to read it. Look at the cover of this comic book. This girl is the next great female lead on the CW. She’s Buffy and Veronica. You should be writing this.” It was really her passion for it that made me take it seriously and read the comics and I asked if I could do it with Diane who, the idea of getting a great female lead on the CW is really appealing to me. She’s the lover of zombies and genre stuff. She was attracted to that. I like the amount of passion the studio had for it. And then, in the comic book they have ghosts and were-terriers and a bunch of different kinds of monsters wandering around and that was less interesting to me. True Blood had done that sort of thing. There’s another multiple monster show on. I wanted to stay just pure zombie. But we both liked the biggest idea out of that comic book which was that she ate the brains and inherited their memories and kind of fixed the issues of the dead. Putting her in a morgue gave us a story that allowed us to do murder mysteries each week. We talked a lot about Pushing Daisies. I think that may be the show we have the most similarity with. In that show they got those little glimpses, the little tiny glimpses and that’s kind of what ours does as well.
IGN: When you’re casting a lead on any show it’s a big deal. What was it about Rose that convinced you she was the one?
Thomas: I’ve mentioned this once or twice, but when we cast Veronica Mars, I saw a hundred actresses and Kristen Bell was the first one in the door and I knew I had it. We have to take five actresses to studio and three to network but I knew I had the person I wanted to do the show. With iZombie, Rose was the hundredth. She was literally the last and I was freaking out because we didn’t have it. I was about to leave on the Veronica Mars premiere circuit for a week without the lead of the show were I’m directing the pilot that starts shooting a week after I get back. We were so screwed at that point and then she walked in the door. I think it’s the charm. Can you imagine wanting to watch her for five years? Does she have the kind of charm and charisma? We knew we would need someone who could deliver comedy and had a range but at the end of the day, it’s does she jump out at you? Do you want to be with her? And we all felt that way about Rose. She had one of the greatest network auditions I’d ever seen. Whenever you do these, you get to work with the actors right before they go in for the world’s gnarliest audition with the head of the studio, head of the network, all the executives, into a small little room. They’re auditioning over four pages of material and this is your girl and she doesn’t flub anything. We had two actors that came in there. The other girl ended up being a sacrificial lamb. Rose so nailed that audition. She came out of the room celebrating and I was in such panic mode. It was a hallelujah moment for the show because I’ve had actors who I wanted to be great get into that room, and everything you’ve seen collapses and with her it elevated. It was an amazing audition.
IGN: You’ve got a story structure that gives you a good engine for a case of the week, as it were. But how much will that bleed together with the serialized story growing in the background? What kind of balance are you looking for?
Thomas: I think there was a sort of evolution over the course of the season. There was no written rule. I would say the beginning episodes gave more attention to those mysteries of the week and over the course of the season, that shifted over into the mythology and we started finding cases that were part of the mythology. I think that’s going to be what the show succeeds or fails on. The murder cases make a nice -- not a nice, that’s a funny way of putting it! [Laughs] I think, hopefully, we’ll have fans of the show and I have a feeling they’re going to gravitate to the zombie stuff. They’re going to want to get to our characters more than the investigation of this dead body in the morgue. It’s a great device though because we get to do “This week, Liv knows Kung Fu. Next week, she’s a cheerleader.” We get to have a lot of fun with that but I think, and I don’t know if there’s a function of later in the season there’s more mythology but, if it went 60/40 towards the case of the week in the beginning, it probably ended up 60/40 mythology by the end.
IGN: Can you talk about more about finding the comic book style visuals in the show? This show is based on a comic book but there are still other adaptations that don’t look like that at all.
Thomas: We stumbled into it. I wish I had known that we were going to go there when I shot the pilot because I would have done a few things differently. It was in the editing room on the pilot and it was, “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” Around the same time, I had an idea for both the song I wanted to use in the main titles and how we could do it. I think there are certain things that fans of the comic book are going to be unhappy with, that they’re not getting the comic that they loved. But I thought a great shout out to them would be to have the artist who did the comic series do our main titles and draw those characters, just to carry that look through. What I really remember… some version of that was watching the Wild Wild West as a kid and they would use those panels as bumpers between acts. We played around with it to get it to where we are now but it was sort of a fun, signature piece to throw in the show.
IGN: The title iZombie can be polarizing, as I’m sure you’re aware and make the more cynical declare say, “Oh, that sounds so stupid.” Do you embrace that challenge?
Thomas: Yeah. If you’ve seen, we even have fun with it. We’re very aware of [the question] are we on the tail end of the zombie phenomena? I think it’s a fresh approach to them. I would hate it if right now we were trying to do a kick ass zombie apocalypse show. I don’t think we’ll be competing. I think there’s absolutely a chance of some people wanting the violence, survival [aspect] who will go, “This is not for me.” But we can never out walking dead the Walking Dead. We have to be something different on this network.
IGN: Kind of piggybacking off that, was it interesting to find what tone you wanted to do and how much you wanted to veer into how dark will things get and how much horror you wanted to delve into?
Thomas: We do get there. The season finale is a violent, violent episode. I think even episode three that you saw, the zombie in the hole, there we got to find a way to make more traditional zombie tropes work for the show and I think we’ll come back to that at another time So we’ll embrace it but it won’t be our bread and butter on the show. I think the comedy and the fun that we can have with the brain eating, I think that’s where we’ll carve out our own identity.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/03...tor-rob-thomas-on-what-to-expect-from-izombie
This shyt finna be so wack,