‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas’ Review – Now Available On The Roku Channel!
Whilst ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist‘ Season 2 is still airing on E4 in the UK, when you reach the end of that season, Roku has a wonderful festive treat for you, as ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas’ is now available to stream for free on The Roku Channel via Sky, NOW, and other Roku compatible devices.
For those of you who have somehow missed this phenomenal series, ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’ stars Jane Levy (‘Suburgatory’) as Zoey Clarke, a whip-smart computer coder forging her way in San Francisco. After an unusual event, she starts to hear the innermost wants and desires of the people around her through songs. At first, she questions her own sanity but soon realises this unwanted curse may just be an incredibly wonderful gift.
The film picks up where season two left off, continuing Zoey’s journey as she navigates work, family, love, and everything in between. On her first holiday without her father, Zoey attempts to create a magical Christmas for her family just like the ones Mitch used to do. Due to the fact many people will still be watching Season 2 in the UK, I’ve tried to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible.
As you know if you’ve read any articles on this site, or listened to the Geektown Radio podcast, we absolutely adore ‘Zoey’s here at Geektown, so were over the moon when Roku decided to rescue the show for this film. Just like the series, the movie enacts an expert balance of joy and love, whilst also being an amazing exploration of grief, all mixed with some fabulous musical performances, and in the case of the film, some festive celebration sprinkled on top. This is Zoey’s first Christmas without her Dad, and she is struggling. As someone who has lost a parent, I understand how hard that first festive season can be, and the movie captures those feelings here so beautifully. What I’ve always found staggering about this series is how incredibly well it manages to deal with the subject of grief without coming off as flippant, cheesy, or depressing. The same is true of this film. You can see how much Zoey is in pain, but the emotional power of the music, and the humour as characters such as Mo (Alex Newell) try to keep Zoey in the festive spirit, lifts it to a far more joyous and happy place. It can wrench your heart out one moment, only to have you crying with laughter minutes later.
For fans of ‘Zoey’s (of which you all should be), the film does a good job of (Christmas) wrapping a number of the plot threads left dangling at the end of Season 2, which is impressive given they only have around 100 minutes to play with. However, whilst they do bring plotlines to a satisfying point, they are also being careful not to slam closed doors too. Roku has not yet said if they will or won’t continue ‘Zoey’s with more films or a 3rd Season, but the writers have managed to leave some space to manoeuvre should that happen… and we REALLY hope it does!
‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas’ is produced by Lionsgate in association with the Tannenbaum Company, Feigco Entertainment and Universal Music Group’s Polygram Entertainment and Zihuatenejo Productions.
‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas’ is available now on The Roku Channel, via Sky Apps, NOW stick/boxes, and other Roku compatible devices.
