Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, a San Francisco-based computer programmer, is given little in the way of personality other than broadly appealing character for a central character. She loves her family and works harder at her job. Levy is an appealing enough performer to carry off a slightly written character like this one, but she’s working hard, too. The performances she hears be liable not to be at the level of Levy’s own non-singing performance. In casting actors not known for their singing, the show hews to the longstanding practice of digitally sweetening performances so much that they sound less like the human voice than like the a synthesizer approximating song. (Levy’s co-star, Skylar Astin, appeared in the “Pitch Perfect” films, a forerunner of this trend.)

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (TV Series 2020– ) – IMDb

These mixed-bag performances speaking to big, obvious emotional beats — Levy’s coworker is sad, so he sings “Mad World,” a contender for the most morose song ever — tend to overshadow what in the show works interestingly and well. The plot about Zoey’s family life puts the show’s musical conceit to moving use. Her dad (Peter Gallagher), beset with a degenerative disease, can recently speak with her through melody in a manner he never again can through expressed word, and ascends to sing about what he wants just to sink once more into quietness. These advances between father-girl fellowship and void are movingly done, not least on the grounds that — in a detail that isn’t overdrawn — Zoey’s starting new force may, potentially, be more than adventitious with a family ancestry of neurological issues.

‘Zoey’s Extraordinary‘: TV Review

In the conduct episode, Zoey grudgingly schedules an MRI for herself after experiencing many days of headaches; her beloved father (The O.C.’s Peter Gallagher) suffers from a neurological disease that has left him mostly motionless and unable to speak, and Zoey is just freaked out enough by her stress headaches and eye pain to see a doctor and ensure she’s not sick, too

But a badly timed earthquake takes place while Zoey is in the MRI machine, causing the technician’s computer to go berserk and play all kinds of music at once. The ordeal only lasts a few chaotic seconds — but when Zoey leaves the MRI, she can suddenly hear other people’s thoughts, in song.

Understandably, Zoey’s new ability freaks her out at first; there’s nothing calming about hundreds of people breaking into The Beatles’ “Help!” on the streets of San Francisco, after all. Plus, her life is complicated enough without hearing strangers’ inner monologues: In addition to her dad’s health issues and a love-hate relationship with neighbor Mo (Glee‘s Alex Newell), Zoey is in the running for a big promotion at work, but she sorta tanks the interview with intimidating boss Joan (Parenthood’s Lauren Graham)..

Afterward, however, Zoey discovers she’s ready to make enthusiastic associations with others, presently that she’s conscious of their most defenseless considerations. In the wake of watching her apparently glad associate Simon (on whom she has a gigantic squash) sing “Frantic World,” Zoey can start up an important discussion with him the following day; she shares that her dad is kicking the bucket of an uncommon malady, and Simon uncovers he’s as yet battling with his father’s ongoing suicide. Both of them structure a quick bond — and in spite of the fact that Simon is locked in to a dazzling lady named Jessica, he concedes that Zoey can identify with his psychological weight more than his life partner can.

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist – Series Premiere Discussion

A couple of days into her befuddling new presence as a mind-peruser, Zoey sits alongside her father on the love seat and cries to him, crying that she doesn’t feel like herself nowadays and could truly utilize his wise counsel. At that point, in the scene’s most tragic succession, Zoey gets the chance to hear her father’s musings in melody; in spite of the fact that he can’t talk or move, all things considered, he sings Cyndi Lauper’s “Genuine nature” to her in an awesome dream arrangement, influencing with her in a moderate move around the family room while Zoey sobs. (And out of nowhere, the crate of Kleenex beside me is totally unfilled.)

‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’: TV Review

NBC. Two episodes screened for review.