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Celebrating 25 Years Of The West Wing

Veronica Mars and Tru Calling, Blended and Served with Brains? iZombie vs. Other Shows

Cranberry

By Cranberry
in iZombie [V]

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Cranberry

Cranberry

Here's the place to discuss similarities and differences between iZombie and other shows. The title is just what popped into my head when I went to make this; feel free to suggest alternatives.

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Cranberry

Cranberry

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I dunno, the different personalities every week is very Dollhouse! I miss that show. It started out weak but got much better toward the end. iZombie's supernatural procedural element reminds me of Tru Calling, another show that got good right before it got cancelled.

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jbrecken

jbrecken

There's a little bit of Forever Knight in this show - it was about a vampire cop who solved crime, and his supporting cast included the ME trying to cure his condition and the evil platinum-haired guy who created him, although it admitted that it took place in Canada.

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FurryFury

FurryFury

Yes on True Calling, canceled just as it was getting really interesting, such a waste (although for me it will always be the show Eliza Dushku chose over Faith spin-off, and I just can't forgive that).

 

Never seen Forever Knight, the only thing I've heard that it was like proto-Angel.

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Sakura12

Sakura12

I don't think I ever finished watching Tru Calling and am still shocked that Zach Galifianakis was in it. 

 

Every show has parts of it from other shows, everything has pretty much been produced, it's hard to be completely original. I think it's more the VO's that remind of Veronica Mars. Liv does solve crime completely differently then Veronica. 

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FurryFury

FurryFury

I'd say it's the dialogue/monologues, overall. It just has a very similar style, I sometimes hear a line and realize that I could easily imagine Veronica saying that. Still, I really love this style of writing, and the show is often genuinely funny, so it doesn't distract me at all.

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fluffysheap

fluffysheap

(edited)

At first, I thought Veronica Mars crossed with Tru Calling, but I don't really see that much Tru Calling in it. Aside from the morgue setting, there's not that much that seems the same to me. Then there's Dollhouse. But the themes and structure of Dollhouse are very different. Just the bit about absorbing personality is shared, but even that is done differently. In Dollhouse, Echo's ability to slowly regain her original memories and personality is key to the show, whereas here it is taken for granted and not really much of a focus (although Rose McIver plays it very well).

The one that keeps coming to mind is Dead Like Me. Thematically, it's very similar. You have someone who wasn't really alive when she was alive, and only learns to engage the world after she's forced to be apart from it. And she's forced to cut off, more or less, everyone in her old life. It's not as stark as it was in Dead Like Me, where George was not allowed to have any contact with her old life at all, but here Liv is totally alienated from them, which is probably a little better overall. Being completely cut off was pretty awkward because George's mother and sister had all these scenes where they just could never interact with the main character at all. Here we don't have to prance around the contrivances, they can just be in the same room and not understand each other. The Liv all her friends and family knew is just as dead as George was. And also like Dead Like Me, Liv's unlife lessons come when she's forced to see things through the perspective of whichever dead person she's responsible for in that episode. Also, Bryan Fuller, who was the showrunner for Dead Like Me, went on to do Hannibal, who has no doubt eaten the occasional brain.

And, of course, there's the whole Not!Seattle thing, although it is done better here. The settings in Dead Like Me did not, in any way, shape, or form, resemble Seattle. Here, if you don't look too closely, you can sort of buy it. The shipping dock looks almost right, and the overpass over the skate park kinda almost looks like the monorail, and the downtown architecture is not too far off. They seem to go back and forth between using real street names and bogus ones.

Edited by fluffysheap
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Sakura12

Sakura12

(edited)

I loved Dead Like Me! The show was awesome, the movie sucked. I guess there are some similarities with the lead character being undead and learning life lessons from the recently deceased. George connected with a musician as well. With all of George's issues at least she didn't have to worry about eating brains too. 

Edited by Sakura12
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editorgrrl

editorgrrl

At first, I thought Veronica Mars crossed with Tru Calling, but I don't really see that much Tru Calling in it. Aside from the morgue setting, there's not that much that seems the same to me.

 

Tru Davies (Eliza Dushku) is a medical student working in a city morgue. Her boss, Davis (Zach Galifianakis), knows her secret: Tru uses her special powers to help murder victims. Tru meets Jack Harper (Jason Priestley), a guy who has her same condition but a different agenda.

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BPOX

BPOX

On the Smallville threads back in the day we had a reference thread with common acronyms. It was pretty hilarious. It might be helpful to start a running list of refernces as they come up. Like you know Scoobie gang as being folks who work to solce the mystery will come up. VMVO being Veronica Mars Voice over which was done to sound film noir there. I guess it is to clarify Liv point of view and voice here.

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CinnamonCat

CinnamonCat

Standing on a rooftop, gun in hand, staring at the bad guy, and you can't kill him because you're not a killer. Sound familiar, Veronica Mars fans?

 

That's what I was thinking too! 

 

Except in this case the bad guy lived. 

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niklj

niklj

(edited)

One thing that I wish this show did MORE of like Veronica Mars is to give us an insight into what Liv's life was like before the zombie thing. I get that not much has changed to her personality before this other than she was a lot more book-wormy, but I wish we got some more flashbacks or something that would help us explain better how she's dealing with this whole thing. We kind of got that with the episode where he finds Major has moved on, but so far I'm not feeling Liv that much as a character. She doesn't seem to be really pushing that hard to find a cure for her zombieness as Ravi is, she is intent on killing Blaine only after 5 episodes or so after Major is, there's no real arc to her character like we saw to Veronica trying to find out who raped her in the first episode.

 

Basically I feel like we still need more history on Liv.

 

Edit: Fixed some typos...

Edited by niklj
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marketdoctor

marketdoctor

In addition to the above, I get the feeling they're treating Major like an Arrow character--he gets the Bad Things Happen for No Reason recurring plot.  I hope he gets a happy ending (or an explanation for the bad karma...but preferably the former; the Evil All Along trope can get annoying if they do it too much, and they already have the Chief of Police.

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FurryFury

FurryFury

In addition to the above, I get the feeling they're treating Major like an Arrow character--he gets the Bad Things Happen for No Reason recurring plot.

 

It's TV. Many, many characters have bad stuff happening to them for no reason. It's Drama 101.

 

Did Liv deserve becoming a zombie? Did Lowell? Did all those victims whose brains Liv's eating deserve getting murdered? No, there was no reason, but there would be no show because of that. 

 

That said, I think that quote was a bit different - it was something about "Oliver makes bad decisions so there'd be a show". Which is still a somewhat valid POV - but it's important to not overdo something like this, or people would stop watching. I mean, just look at Barry Allen screwing up again and again on The Flash, it's ridiculous (still doesn't hurt the ratings because apparently most casual viewers just turn their brains off while watching that show, don't fault them for it though, it's not supposed to be thought about seriously).

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Chicago Redshirt

Chicago Redshirt

"A long time ago, we used to be friends" got slipped into the Housewives episode. Hee!

 

I am not sure that's true, though - I am not seeing the similarities between the characters. He's portrayed, at least to me, as just some reasonably good-looking guy with a gift of gab and slick manners. He is good at getting not-so-smart people do dangerous stuff for him. And he's been a zombie for less than a year. So it's not as if he'd been alive for hundreds of years like Spike. Lack of aging or aging isn't even an issue at this point.

 

Spike is a reasonably good-looking guy with a gift of gab and slick manners. Both he and Blaine are motivated by greed.

 

He and Blaine look at least somewhat similar.

 

They are both untrustworthy douches who represent a potential ally/enemy to our respective heroines, and who it should be obvious to our heroines that she should be putting him down but for some reason won't.

 

Right now, Blaine-Liv sexual tension isn't anywhere near where Spike-Buffy tension was. But I wouldn't be surprised if the powers that be go there, either. 

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Chicago Redshirt

Chicago Redshirt

I think the Major-Liv relationship is also paralleling a gender-flipped Angel-Buffy relationship.

 

They are hypothetically each other's one true pairing. But Buffy/Major have an apparent calling to kill monsters, and Angel/Liv are themselves monsters. 

 

There's also a little of the "But you're a tiny blonde! How are you kicking all this ass?"

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Chicago Redshirt

Chicago Redshirt

One of the shows that we haven't talked about that iZombie's brought to mind is Psych. The USA show featured a character who was hyper-observant and used his ability to pretend to be a psychic. He hams things up a lot more in his pretending to be a psychic, while Liv can't really seem to help channeling whatever she does. 

 

I would like the show to have a Lassiter-equivalent who is very skeptical about Liv's abilities, or for Peyton to become more of a Gus equivalent.

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