Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist

Did anyone else watch last night? I wasn't overwhelmed by the premiere episode, but thought that the concept was clever and that it could lend itself to getting more interesting as the season goes on.

I thought it accomplished the amazing feat of being simultaneously predictable and improbable, but I must admit the hour put a smile on my face. (But they should call it FLASH MOB, in my opinion.)

Mandy Moore (I assume the choreographer, not the actress) is credited as "Executive Producer"; still this concept is basically GLEE without the school and ELI STONE without the law firm. I know GLEE was a big deal for a season or two, but neither show was long-lived.

Mandy Moore (I assume the choreographer, not the actress) is credited as "Executive Producer"

Yes, that is Emmy Award winning choreographer Mandy Moore as Executive Producer. She is also the serie’s choreographer.

Bettyboy, I wonder why? I saw him in On the 20th Century and thought his singing was pretty good there.

I watched the whole episode. I take back my comment about Gallagher. He sounds lovely. I was only half listening when I passed the TV before.

Overall, it's cute. The talent is great. That being said it feels really calculated and that takes some of the joy out of it for me. I can hear the pitch meeting, "It's like Glee meets La La Land and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. We cast an Emma Stone type, but younger, fresher."

It feels very contrived at times. Also, I'm not a huge fan of current writing (ie This Is Us) that doesn't earn emotion from viewers but wrings it out of them. When you delve into suicide, depression, and mute, chronically ill parents who were formerly incredible in your first episode it's clearly going for the emotional jugular. Like This Is Us, they try to set a bar of running a gamut of emotions every episode. That type of writing exhausts me and feels really inorganic.

I'll give it a chance, but whereas Crazy Ex-Girlfriend felt unhinged, odd and off-kilter in the great way Rachel is, this feels put together by a committee looking for a hit.

Also, again with these apartments. What do Jane Levy and Alex Newell do as 20 somethings that give them these lavish places to live in San Francisco? Always a sitcom gripe. :) Can't people's apartment looks like the girls on Broad City. That's realistic.

Personally, I agree about the singing being subpar. For a show centered around musical numbers, I found most of them to be pretty disappointing, maybe Skylar Astin was the only one with a passable performance. I thought Peter Gallagher's singing was...not great. There is potential for this to be an entertaining show - but I hope they do something to improve the musical numbers. It almost sounded to me like they were opting for "realism" when it comes to the singing - but these are essentially dream sequences in the girls head, so it seems to me like they should be opting for highly produced, extravagant, track recorded musical numbers more like La La Land, instead of trying to make it seem like the actor just decided to sing instead of speak their lines.

Updated On: 1/9/20 at 05:01 PM