We’re well-versed in the art of the background show. Something you put on when you’re not in the mood to watch anything but you also need other voices in the room while you work.
I thought Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist would be such a show. Easy, with a few familiar faces and a premise just interesting enough to be more entertaining than a blank screen. I was wrong.
By episode three I was dancing and singing along while waiting excitedly to see the people I liked win. I was part of their world and I was lapping up all the drama, emotion and nostalgia that the musical feelings were delivering.
I was also getting deeply invested in the life of Mo (Alex Newell), a genderfluid DJ, building manager, fashionista and general foil for your ordinary idea of a “magical negro”. When Zoey Clarke (Jane Levy), the perpetually flustered computer programmer from next door who has few friends but too many life problems, confides in Mo about her new superpower, she sets the stage for an extraordinary friendship.
An MRI scan fluke leaves Zoey with the ability to hear the “heart songs” of everyone around her. Through Ke$ha, Van Morrison and The Proclaimers, Zoey learns to listen not only to what she can hear but to what her people desperately need her to know. With Mo by her side, Zoey begins to turn down the pessimism and add a baseline of empathy and joy to her relationships. It would be easy to dismiss Mo as a flamboyant dreamer whose only job is to prop up his white friend. After all the costumes are loud and there is a lot of sassy back talk. But the two come to love and respect each other in a way that illustrates how important it is to have at least one core friendship in life.
Musical television shows can be ridiculous fun or they can be a cloying disaster. Seeing actors who are not also musicians break character and reach for impossible notes while doing some serious flash mob choreography is cringeworthy – that’s just the truth. There’s something about seeing people express their innermost feelings through song that gives me major second-hand embarrassment. Yet, in Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, we are able to see past the fanfare to the heart of the matter. The music comes from the heart – and that’s why it is great.
The show hits some great emotional beats. When there is a lot happening on-screen – bright colours, beautiful people, big dance numbers – it’s important for there to be something to focus on. In Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, we have a family — people who see and support each other through life’s most difficult moments — and they let us into their personal streaming accounts and walk us through their recently played songs.
This show knows that the best way to get to know someone is to hear what they sing to themselves when no one is watching.
Nkhensani Manabe 