Liv's already dead, but iZombie lives on! Rob Thomas and Dianne Ruggiero-Wright's charming and clever zombie drama has been renewed for Season 2. Let's pause and celebrate with a catchy tune...
The news dropped today over at TVLine, coming in about a week ahead of CW's planned upfront presentation. It sounds like fans can rest easy and expect to see the series on CW's 2015-2016 lineup. Whether or not CW decides to hold Season 2 until Midseason as they did with Season 1, or line it up for the fall remains to be seen.
Based on a DC Comics/Vertigo series, iZombie comes from Veronica Mars' Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright, and stars Rose McIver as Liv Moore, a medical resident whose life is turned upside-down when she's turned into a zombie. She goes from being an over-achieving doctor to a functioning zombie feeding on brains at her new place of employment, the Seattle morgue. Her identity crisis is exaggerated further as she temporarily acquires memories and personality traits of the people whose brains she ingests.
iZombie slid into a comfortable rhythm early on, balancing Liv's adjustment to being a zombie -- and the mystery surrounding her condition -- and her efforts to use the memories of the victims in the morgue to help solve their murders. The series debuted in March to an audience of 2.29 million and has managed to stay well above 1.5 million per episode since, with this week's "Dead Air" coming in at 1.62 million, the lowest the series has seen in its first eight episodes. iZombie deserves more viewers than it's getting, but it seems CW is confident enough in the series' potential to keep it around.
There's no word on how many episodes iZombie will receive for its second season. I won't complain if Season 2 follows behind Season 1 with another 13-episode order. I probably wouldn't complain if the order turns out to be for 23 episodes, but the shorter format sometimes works out better for a TV series, as opposed to a longer run of episodes, which might result in plots being dragged out to fill time between premiere and finale. We'll have to wait and see what CW has in mind for iZombie. Hopefully we'll know more come next Thursday when the network is expected to reveal their official 2015-2016 slate.
With iZombie renewed, fans are left to wonder about the fate of one of CW's other new series this year. The Messengers premiered in April, and though it's only aired three episodes, the series last two installments each failed to break a million viewers, which probably isn't a good sign.
