The first look at Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas is here and full of musical holiday cheer

Call it a holiday miracle: The first look at Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas is finally here!

After the devastating cancellation of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist in June, the quirky musical dramedy starring Jane Levy is back for a holiday-themed TV movie on the Roku Channel. And EW has your exclusive sneak peek with the first footage from the film, which features Zoey (Levy) hearing her BFF Mo (Alex Newell) sing "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" as a heart song in the middle of the mall. So yes, that means that despite the season 2 finale cliffhanger revealing that Zoey's new boyfriend Max (Skylar Astin) now has her powers to hear people's inner thoughts and desires through music, Zoey thankfully still has her powers too — clearing up one of the many mysteries left dangling in the show.

"It's all I want, more Zoey's! I can't wait for you to see it," creator Austin Winsberg tells EW exclusively. "When it all went down [with the cancellation], it was really surprising, gut-wrenching, devastating, and the fans were incredible with that 'Save Zoey's Playlist' campaign. I definitely feel like so much of this happening is because of the fans, and I definitely tried to honor the fans and what I thought the fans would want to see a lot in the movie."

Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas premieres Dec. 1 — and both seasons of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist are now available to stream for free on the Roku Channel. Along with Levy, Astin, and Newell, series stars John Clarence Stewart, Andrew Leeds, Alice Lee, Michael Thomas Grant, Kapil Talwalkar, David St. Louis, Mary Steenburgen, Peter Gallagher, and Bernadette Peters also returned for the movie, allowing Winsberg to continue the story as he always intended to in a third season, music and all.

"I think we have something like 12 musical numbers in the movie, so I'm really excited for everyone to see some of these numbers we've come up with," he says. "I love that we get to do holiday-specific numbers, because we've never got to do anything like that before. But especially for the fans, there was a lot of questions about what's going on with Max and Zoey, so I love that we get to continue that story and answer that. And people who were hungering to see Max and Zoey in a relationship, we really get to get to explore that in a real way in the movie."

Below, Winsberg reveal everything you need to know about Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas. But first, check out the first heart song from the movie:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I'm already loving the Zoey's movie based on this scene alone. When does this heart song take place in the movie?

AUSTIN WINSBERG: The scene happens very, very early in the movie, the beginning of the movie, and it is the biggest musical number we've ever done. And mic-drop, it's also one-shot. There's no cuts. I just knew for the movie I wanted to have a big opening number that said we're not messing around and we're able to have a scope with this that feels bigger than what we could do every week on the series.

And I wanted to start with a big Christmas song that everybody knows to announce that we're doing something big, but also from Zoey's point of view, establishing really early in the movie that it's going to be a hard Christmas for her because it's her first Christmas without her father, and Mo and everybody else is already in the Christmas spirit, and juxtaposing her challenging, potentially negative attitude about how is she going to handle Christmas this year with everybody else feeling the Christmas love and the Christmas joy? It was amazing shooting it, too. We have hundreds of dancers in this number.

Are all the heart songs going to be Christmas/holiday-themed?

There are plenty of holiday songs in the movie, but I also still wanted to be able to use other big songs from big artists at the same time, so it's a combo platter of popular songs and holiday songs. Also, just because so many of the songs in the show have to deal with people's internal needs and wants in the heart songs, it's hard to find a ton of holiday songs that really speak to people's internal needs and wants beyond just wanting to have a great Christmas. [Laughs] I thought it was important to spread the wealth and do a combo of both holiday and non-holiday.

That makes sense. It'd be a stretch fitting only holiday-themed songs into the story as heart songs.

Yeah, and I actually had broken a version early on that only used holiday songs. There was a way, but it did feel a little bit limiting. Also there were so many great songs by great artists that we hadn't gotten to do in the series that it felt like a missed opportunity to not try to be able to do both.

Can you reveal any other songs or artists we'll hear in the movie?

One I will tell you is Taylor Swift is coming back again. I wanted to go big for the movie or go home!

Why did you want to make the movie centered around the holidays?

That was an idea that came out of trying to figure out how to do a movie that could be standalone in a way so that people who hadn't watched Zoey's before could come in and enjoy it just by watching the movie, but also I still wanted to honor some of the continuous stuff and some of the cliffhanger stuff that we had left season 2 on. We also hadn't gotten the opportunity to do anything around a specific date or holiday because we never knew when our episodes were going to air, and also wanting to lean into the family of it all, it just seemed like a nice opportunity to tell something that could use different kinds of songs than we were really able to use in series, that felt like a really fun one-off but could also be something that people could come back to — because people love holiday movies and go back and revisit them year after year. Just being able to do a big musical, family, holiday movie with the Zoey's cast and with the Zoey's story really appealed to me.

What are we going to see from Zoey throughout the movie?

Zoey is going to be navigating the challenges of trying to celebrate her first Christmas without her father, who was such a big part of her life and the family's life and who tried to always create these bigger moments, bigger memories around holiday times by having amazing Christmases for the Clark family. And now the family's left adrift trying to figure out how to do it without dad around. I remember my first holidays without my father — my dad's birthday is actually Christmas day — and what that feeling was like, so wanting to tap into some of the heart and the emotionality of that, but also continuing the theme from season 2 of needing to carry on, it just felt like we could tell a complete story around Zoey's challenges as it pertains to the holidays. Should we celebrate it at all? Should we ignore it? Do we honor him? Do we not honor him? What are the ways that we as a family can function over the holidays?

It also felt like, with the amount of loss that's been happening in the world and with everything with COVID, that seemed like something that people could definitely relate and connect to, not being with loved ones and family over the holidays. It felt like a universal idea, and Zoey is struggling with all the same questions that we all struggle with when you don't get to be with the people you love during that time of year. And then on top of that, still continuing along with the story line of Max getting the powers and what that now means for Zoey and their relationship as well.

That was my next question! The last thing we saw in season 2 was that massive cliffhanger of Zoey and Max finally reuniting and Max getting her powers, so how is that going to continue in the movie?

It is a big part of the movie. A lot of the movie is Zoey and Max now navigating their relationship with Max having the powers, the toll that the powers themselves take on their relationship, and what Max learns by having the powers.

I'm relieved that Zoey still has her powers as well and they didn't just transfer over to Max.

Did I say that Zoey still has the powers?

Well, we see her hearing Mo's heart song in that first scene…

Ah, yes. It was always my intention, and this was going to be the season 3 intention, that it wasn't Max getting them instead of Zoey, it was Max getting them on top of Zoey getting them. A lot of my plans for season 3, in a romantic-comedy way, was how do these two people navigate a relationship now when they can both hear what's going on in the other person's head? And their different points of view and approaches to the powers was going to be a lot of what was going to fuel season 3.

And we're still going to get all that rom-com stuff in the movie?

Definitely, a lot of scenes with the two of them navigating and dealing with the powers, and what it means to each of them, and how it works now being in this relationship together with it.

How has Max getting the powers impacted the way you're able to do heart songs in the movie?

It opens up our world and our possibilities of storytelling. The biggest thing that it gets to do, which is why I was such an advocate of it, was it allows Jane to sing and dance more. Jane is so good and funny at doing that kind of stuff. It was always somewhat of a challenge in the series to try to figure out ways, because of the rules of the powers, to get Zoey in on the musical numbers and not just watching them. I thought this was an instant way to be able to let Jane in on some of the song-and-dance fun. She has a few killer numbers in the movie. She has one number where I watch it with my jaw on the floor every time I see it. I have no idea how she did it.

Besides Zoey and Max, what can you reveal about any romance we're going to see for the other characters?

'Tis the season! Love Actually, I'm a big fan of that holiday movie. We're going to continue with Mo and Perry's story and seeing how that relationship progresses. And there's going to be a couple other romantic surprises that people might not expect when they watch the movie.

Related content:

• Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist holiday movie is officially happening — find out who's returning
• Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist saved by Roku? Canceled series near deal for TV movie
• Skylar Astin reacts to Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist cancelation: We're holding on to hope