Sunday’s ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’ Is a Bay to Breakers Episode – SFist

The SF-set musical TV show Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist is doing a Bay to Breakers episode Sunday night, likely without much nudity or drunkenness. But Bernadette Peters is involved!

The NBC television show premiered last year (January 2020) and is set in San Francisco, and the premise is that the main character is having some kind of mental health aberration in which she experiences other peoples’ innermost thoughts as musical numbers. We kind of lost track of this series after the pandemic hit, but we are pretty intrigued with the news today from the Chronicle’s Datebook section that Sunday’s episode of this “musical dramedy” will be a Bay to Breakers episode. SFist scoured through the publicity stills and information available online about the episode, and it does not appear it will feature any of the nudity, drunkenness, peeing in public, or Stanley Roberts catching people in the act of such shenanigans for which the race is known.

First, we’ll note that it appears that this episode was not shot in San Francisco, though the show is supposed to take place here. The Chronicle’s report says that the series “is largely filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia,” and as Hoodline earlier noted, they only do occasional exterior shoots here. The IMDB entry for this episode does not list locations, but some website called Celebzz.com has shots of the Bay to Breakers scene that verify that this scene was shot in Vancouver. The IMDB still photos of the episode show no evidence of San Francisco, but they do show that Tony Award winner Bernadette Peters makes a cameo, and her vocal skills are certainly worth tuning in for.

The trailer for the episode is a mere 15 seconds, and it indicates that there is definitely a Bay to Breakers scene, though the episode is not necessarily Bay to Breakers-centric. The Bay to Breakers scene is clearly a musical number. The story arc appears to be more about a double date gone awkwardly, with the clip ending with one of the women on the double date saying to the two men, “You two have a little bit of weird history, don’t you?” (Please let them be former gay lovers! Please let them be former gay lovers!)

Digging though more clues, the show’s Facebook post above indicates that there will be a Queen song done as a musical number. An Entertainment Weekly interview with the show’s choreographer Mandy Moore asks Moore about “a scene in which Zoey (Jane Levy) sees the Bay to Breakers crowd of runners perform a Heart song,” and Moore says “It was 40 to 50 dancers, but then we had 150 extras or background, and then our cast on top of that.” The scene was shot during COVID-19, but the show does not appear to acknowledge the pandemic.

And hey, what about Bay to Breakers this year? Last we’d heard, they pushed it out to August but were still planning an in-person 2021 race. That statement is no longer operable, and they’ve backtracked to a virtual race again (which registrants can run anytime May 16 to June 2). As such, SFist sees no need to do our annual Bay to Breakers Liquor Store Map this year.

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist airs Sunday night, May 2, at 9 p.m. PT on KNTV 11, and will be available on Hulu and Peacock the following day.

Related: Photos: Bay to Breakers Battles Rain With ‘Game of Thrones,’ Elizabeth Holmes Costumes [SFist]

Images: NBC / Lionsgate