Amid the revival of the 
movie musical, NBC’s new pilot 
“Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” 
seeks to capture the camp of 
Broadway classics along with 
modern millennial cynicism. 
A slightly magical premise and 
some genuinely funny moments 
make this show stand out from 
more formulaic sitcoms.
Zoey 
(Jane 
Levy, 
“Don’t 
Breathe”), owner of the titular 
“Extraordinary Playlist,” works 
as a coder at a San Francisco 
start-up 
and 
struggles 
to 
connect with other people. 
After receiving an MRI during 
a small earthquake, she finds 
herself able to hear the inner 
thoughts of those around her 
in the form of pop songs and 
choreographed dances. With 
this ability, she discovers her 
male coworkers are targeting 
her for her gender, her crush 
Simon (John Clarence Stewart, 
“Luke Cage”) is coping with 
a death in the family and her 
near-comatose 
father 
(Peter 
Gallagher, “American Beauty”) 
is trying to reach out in his 
catatonic state.
At 
first 
confused 
and 
terrified 
by 
her 
musical 
semi-hallucinations, 
Zoey 
gradually 
comes 
to 
accept 
that her telepathy can work to 
her advantage. By the end of 
the pilot, Zoey has secured a 
promotion at her start-up and 
has helped repair her family 
relationships. 
Unfortunately, 
Zoey’s 
powers begin to reveal things 
that she did not want to know: 

Zoey’s love interest is actually 
engaged to another woman and 
her best friend and coworker 
Max 
(Skylar 
Astin, 
“Pitch 
Perfect”) is secretly in love 
with her. Employing the help 
of her eccentric neighbor Mo 
(Alex Newell, “Glee”) Zoey 
sets out to hone her newfound 
powers and avoid completely 
losing her mind to the music. 

“Zoey’s 
Extraordinary 
Playlist” has an undoubtedly 
ridiculous premise. It makes 
almost no sense. An MRI 
giving someone superpowers 
is too unrealistic for even the 
most absurd comic book. But 
it’s not a complete bust. At 
their best, musicals are campy 
and fun, so why not make TV 
the same way? After years of 
somber movie musicals like 
“Les Misérables” and box office 
disasters like “Cats,” there’s 
a distinct lack of truly joyous, 
respectably nonsensical music-

based media.
The 
musical 
numbers 
of 
“Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” 
are entertaining, the humor is 
self-aware and the characters 
are original and compelling. 
Overall, the silliness of the 
musical magic is balanced out 
by the genuine fun of the guilty 
pleasure sitcom format. The 
pilot sets up multiple storylines, 
establishing quick pacing. It 
does a good job of keeping the 
mood up when working against 
the 
idyllic 
San 
Francisco 
scenery. Still, the main issue 
with the pilot is its attempt to 
force tragedy into the mix. 
By 
introducing 
Zoey’s 
father as having a debilitating 
neurological 
condition 
that 
renders 
him 
unresponsive 
to 
most 
stimuli, 
“Zoey’s 
Extraordinary 
Playlist” 
sets 
up 
tearjerker 
moments 
in 
his musical sequences that 
feel more exploitative than 
heartfelt. In equating Zoey’s 
quirky 
relationship 
drama 
with a family tragedy, the show 
doesn’t leave room to confront 
the more difficult themes of 
loss and grief that don’t mesh 
well with the pop soundtrack.
Whether 
“Zoey’s 
Extraordinary 
Playlist” 
can 
balance the wildly differing 
issues in the main character’s 
life with proper sensitivity 
remains to be seen. Regardless 
of this potential blindspot, the 
show had a promising start 
and has given itself ample 
room to grow and improve. 
If 
“Zoey’s 
Extraordinary 
Playlist” can identify its weaker 
components, this show could 
fully capture the best aspects of 
the musical genre in a creative 
and innovative way.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, January 14, 2020 — 5

‘Extraordinary Playlist’ 
just might have the range

NBC

ANYA SOLLER
Daily Arts Writer

Selena Gomez has seen it 
all. Lupus, a kidney transplant, 
publicized battles with anxiety 
and depression, an on-again, 
off-again 
ex-boyfriend 
who, 
you know, just happens to be 
Justin Bieber. With her latest 
album, Rare, she puts it all out 
on the table.
“Oh, why don’t you recognize 
I’m so rare?” Gomez asks on the 
title track and album opener. 
This question and recognition 
of 
self-worth 
permeate 
through every song on Rare. 
Accompanied by soft, often 
midtempo, bubbly production 
and 
Gomez’s 
tendency 
to 
whisper and shout as much as 
she sings, this album crafts an 
atmosphere that feels prismatic. 
It’s pink and green and nice to 
float around in for an hour. It’s 
a celebration: both for Gomez’s 
hard-fought self love and for 
everyone else to realize their 
worth alongside her.
On 
“Ring,” 
Gomez 
plays 
the bored and adored subject 
of many admirers’ attention. 
“Wrapped ‘round my finger 
like a ring, ring, ring,” she 

sighs. The ring in the song later 
becomes the sound of the phone 
calls suitors keep making, but 
she doesn’t feel like bothering 
with. The production is playful, 
and it’s nice 
to see Gomez 
own 
her 
power 
after 
she’s claimed 
it for herself.
However, 
Gomez jumps 
back into self-
defense 
on 
the addictive 
track 
“Vulnerable.” 
She 
declares 
her openness 
to 
the 
vulnerability 
of 
love, 
considering 
that “the only 
other option’s 
letting 
go” 
of 
the 
relationship. 
Gomez 
interrogates 
her potential 
lover 
at 
a rapid pace before diving 
into the chorus. “If I give 
the opportunity to you then 
would you blow it? / If I was 

the greatest thing to happen 
to you would you know it?” 
she demands. Gomez makes 
the choice to fall for someone, 
feeling like they’re about to run 
away 
together 
on 
a 
secret 
mission. 
“People You 
Know” is simple 
and 
almost 
painfully 
repetitive, 
yet 
Gomez 
gets 
away with it. 
“We 
used 
to 
be 
close, 
but 
people can go / 
from people you 
know to people 
you don’t” she 
sings 
with 
indifference. 
The 
topic 
matter 
is 
so 
relatable 
that 
little else needs 
to be said for 
the 
message 
to resonate. It 
feels 
a 
little 
lazy to outline 
the arc of a 
relationship so succinctly, but 
it’s also fitting and upsettingly 
truthful. 
In “Cut You Off” the listener 

hears the end of the Bieber-
Gomez saga once and for all 
as if it’s going down in real 
time. “Gotta chop-chop all 
the extra weight / I’ve been 
carrying for fourteen-hundred-
sixty days,” she admits to the 
mirror. The way Gomez slinks 
into this gradual realization is 
pleasantly reminiscent of her 
friend and singer-songwriter 
Julia Michaels’ style. 
On the closing track, “A 
Sweeter Place,” Gomez yearns 
for an escape. The song ascends 
above the already gooey, clap 
track, bubblegum tone of the 
album’s creation into a more 
sugar-coated heaven. Kid Cudi’s 
feature feels a bit out of place 
in Gomez’s daydream, but not 
enough to distract from what 
she’s getting at. Lyrics like, “Is 
there a place where I can hide 

away? / Red lips, french kiss 
my worries all away,” show 
that despite all of her previous 
growth, she’s still 
growing. 
Perhaps 
the 
best 
evidence 
of this need for 
further 
growth 
is 
in 
Rare’s 
missteps. “Kinda 
Crazy” kicks off 
to an intriguing 
start 
with 
juicy, 
imagery-
filled lyrics, but 
falls flat into a 
clunky 
chorus. 
“Crowded Room” 
gives 
Gomez’s 
vocals space to 
breathe and even shine, but 
does little else despite a feature 
from 6lack. 

Rare is a building block 
for Gomez. It’s sticky sweet. 
Sometimes so much so that 
it 
can 
feel 
stuck in self-
empowerment, 
no matter how 
important that 
theme is. And 
yet, 
Rare 
is 
necessary 
to 
the arc of both 
Gomez’s career 
and 
personal 
journey. 
An 
artist 
equally 
gentle 
and 
empowering, 
a person who 
has endured a 
lot but remains 
well-intentioned, Selena Gomez 
is truly rare, and we should 
appreciate her for it.

And yet, Rare 
is necessary to 
the arc of both 
Gomex’s career 
and personal 
journey.

Selena Gomez and self-
empowerment on ‘Rare’

ALBUM REVIEW
ALBUM REVIEW

KATIE BEEKMAN
Daily Arts Writer

INTERSCOPE RECORDS

Among coming-of-age stories, 
“Where the World Ends” by 
Geraldine McCaughrean is a 
bleak example. Nine boys and 
three men are stranded on what 
is essentially a large outcropping 
of rocks called the Warrior Stac, 
off the coast of their remote 
home in the British Isles. 
This part is true — there 
was a group of people stranded 
on a birding trip in the mid-
eighteenth century — but the 
history is more an inspiration 
for 
McCaughrean 
than 
a 
factual 
base. 
Quilliam, 
the 
fictional main character, is a 
young teenage boy who, at the 
outset of the novel, is excited to 
gather birds from the Stac. His 
excitement quickly sours as the 
group is mysteriously stranded 
with no boat from the mainland 
to come pick them up at the end 
of their journey. 
The 
premise 
is 
clearly 
depressing, and the plot makes 
it seem like the book would be 
a chore to consume, leaving 
the reader with a vague sense 
of existential doom. Strangely, 
even after brutal depictions of 
violence, 
death, 
banishment 
and hunger, an enduring hope 
prevails at the novel’s conclusion. 
The boys themselves, as well as 
the birds that they hunt and rely 
on for survival, are symbols of 
perseverance. 
McCaughrean 
circumvents 
the possible problem of a tiringly 
masculine book as Quill learns 
early on in their ordeal that one 
of the other boys, John, is not 
a boy at all. What follows is a 
conflicted handling of gender 
pronouns as Quill tries to keep 
John’s secret for her own safety, 
while 
still 
acknowledging 
the gender identification she 
revealed to him. Meanwhile, 
John herself struggles with a 
complicated identity. She was 
pretending to be a boy at the 
behest of her mother, because 
she had never borne the son 
her husband wanted, so John 
“had always felt guilty since 
birth, after all, for not being a 
boy.” She knows she does not 
want to change her name or her 
personality, however — when one 
of the boys says he could never 
marry a John, she replies, “You 
can and you shall! ... I canna be 
doing with a new name.” John’s 
identity adds a layer of gender 
politics to the new society that 

formed on the Stac. When the 
other boys try to exclude her 
from meetings on the basis of 
sex, she reminds them that she 
was included for many months 
when they thought she was a 
boy. Her very existence forces 
the boys to reconsider their 
traditional views of gender amid 
a survival situation. 
McCaughrean 
also 
deftly 
balances nature imagery and 
character 
description. 
She 
describes the Stac and its birds as 
beautiful, while still capturing 
the 
stark 
and 
unforgiving 
nature of the rocks on which the 
boys survive for nine months. 
In the beginning, when hope 

is abundant on the Stac, the 
imagery is softer and more 
colorful — “The sunsets were 
feathery and pink. The brief 
nights were spark-filled with 
stars.” By the end of the book, 
when the Stac is no longer just 
an exciting symbol of manhood 
but also a bleak reminder of 
mortality, 
the 
descriptions 
become much darker: Quill is 
“impaled on the tip of a giant 
claw and held up close to the sky 
for cloud-beasts to squint at.” 
McCaughrean’s writing style 
transparently 
follows 
Quill’s 
feelings 
throughout, 
which 
not only strengthens the plot, 
but also helps her prose serve 
the overall emotional purpose 
of the novel. Even at the most 
desperate times, Quill retains 
a sense of wonder at the beauty 
of the Stac and an appreciation 
for the birds on it that give him 
life. Alongside Quill’s changing 
perceptions of his situation, the 

novel’s descriptions of nature 
shift from an innocent portrait 
of beauty to a more nuanced 
acknowledgement of the danger 
and brutality that comes with 
that beauty. 
Several parts of the boys’ 
experience on the Stac makes it 
bearable. Quill almost obsesses 
over a girl named Murdina 
whom he met briefly on his 
home island. She came to his 
island from the mainland to 
teach the boys more about 
reading and writing, which is 
part of the reason why Quill felt 
so connected to her — to him, 
she represented education and 
storytelling. Quill is deemed 
“Keeper of Stories” because 
of his penchant for creating 
fantastical tales about the world 
around him that keep the other 
boys optimistic. Even on the 
Stac, the most desolate of places, 
he takes comfort in “collect[ing] 
words.” When Cane’s Bible is 
torn apart and the pieces go 
flying into the wind, Quill turns 
his literary eye on the situation 
and says the pages are “seeding 
the ledges and crags with words” 
that could give the boys “signs, 
warnings, 
encouragement.” 
In the darkest hours on the 
Stac, when everything seems 
hopeless, Quill’s eternal faith in 
the power of words is heartening 
to the other boys and to the 
reader. 
Quill’s 
storytelling 
streak 
gets him in trouble sometimes, 
like when it comes to one of the 
adults stranded with the boys, 
Col Cane. Cane represents the 
oppressive force of religion gone 
wrong, as he appoints himself 
minister of the group despite 
having no authority to do so. 
When Quill tells a story Cane 
thinks is too “pagan,” Cane 
accuses him of being a witch 
and he is banished, though not 
before being literally stoned by 
the other boys at the direction 
of the “minister.” Gradually, the 
boys begin to disregard Cane, 
and by extension adults and 
organized religion, in favor of 
their own freedom and ideas. 
Despite the despair of being 
separated from everything they 
know, the boys experience a 
remarkable degree of freedom 
on the Stac away from structured 
authority and society. This is 
perhaps the most important part 
of their coming-of-age story — 
they have an unprecedented 
amount of freedom that allows 
them to find themselves. On a 
lonely rock outcropping, “every 
boy is some manner of a king.”

Hope amid desolation in 
‘Where the World Ends’

EMILIA FERRANTE
Daily Arts Writer

Zoey’s 
Extraordinary 
Playlist

Series Premiere

NBC

Sundays at 9 p.m. EST

TV REVIEW
TV REVIEW

Rare

Selena Gomez

Interscope Records

Strangely, even 
after brutal 
depictions of 
violence, death, 
banishment 
and hunger, 
an enduring 
hope prevails 
at the novel’s 
conclusion.

BOOK REVIEW

