Zoey 101
Genre	Teen sitcom Comedy-drama
Created by	Dan Schneider
Starring	Jamie Lynn Spears Paul Butcher Sean Flynn Kristin Herrera Christopher Massey Alexa Nikolas Erin Sanders Matthew Underwood Victoria Justice Austin Butler
Narrated by	Jamie Lynn Spears
Theme music composer	Britney Spears, Christian Karlsson, Pontus Winnberg, Henrik Jonback
Opening theme	"Follow Me" by Jamie Lynn Spears
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	65 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Dan Schneider Bill O'Dowd (both; entire run) Jan Korbelin (episodes 1-15) Jörg Westerkamp (episodes 15-65) George Doty IV (season 4)
Producer(s)	Joe Catania (entire run) Bryan Spears (co-producer, entire run) Robin Weiner (supervising producer, seasons 1-3; consulting producer, season 4) Tom Keniston (season 4)
Location(s)	Pepperdine University[1]
Camera setup	Film; Single-camera
Running time	approx. 23-25 minutes
Production company(s)	Schneider's Bakery Apollo ProMovie Nickelodeon Productions
Broadcast
Original channel	Nickelodeon
Picture format	480i 16:9 (SDTV) (broadcast in Letterbox format)
Original run	January 9, 2005 (2005-01-09) – May 2, 2008 (2008-05-02)
External links
Website

Zoey 101 is an American television series which originally aired on Nickelodeon from January 9, 2005 until May 2, 2008. It focuses on the lives of teenager Zoey Brooks (Jamie Lynn Spears) and her friends as they attend the Pacific Coast Academy (PCA). It was created by Dan Schneider. It was initially filmed at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, then at stages in Valencia, California beginning in season 3. It was nominated for an "Outstanding Children's Program" Emmy in 2005.^[2] Zoey 101 was the most expensive production ever for Nickelodeon series, as it was shot completely on location in Malibu.^[3] It was also Nickelodeon's best performance for a series premiere (live action or animation) in almost eight years.^[3] Despite this, many critics have made negative comments about the show, its setting, and its characters.

Plot [edit]

In season one, Zoey Brooks (Jamie Lynn Spears) and her younger brother Dustin (Paul Butcher) arrive at the Pacific Coast Academy (PCA), a school which recently went co-ed after being a boys' school since its founding. Zoey meets her first friend Chase Matthews (Sean Flynn), who, after meeting her, realizes that he has a crush on her. Zoey then meets her roommates, tomboy Dana Cruz (Kristin Herrera) and boy-obsessed, girly-girl Nicole Bristow (Alexa Nikolas). She also meets other friends aspiring scientist/inventor Quinn Pensky (Erin Sanders) and humorous Michael Barret (Christopher Massey), and rich, spoiled and obnoxious frenemy Logan Reese (Matthew Underwood).

In season two, it's a new year at PCA, Dana has been accepted by a European student exchange program, she is now studying in Paris, much to Nicole's delight. Zoey and Nicole get a new roommate, Lola Martinez (Victoria Justice). Lola, being a remarkable actress, tricks Zoey and Nicole into thinking she's someone else. At first, they are not happy about getting a new roommate. They go to the housing office and try to talk a housing director into letting them chose their new roommate but then Nicole knocks down her shelf of antique perfume bottles breaking them to pieces. They are then told to never come back again. Worried, the next day their new roommate Lola Martinez tricks them into thinking she is a goth voodoo punk freak (she even tried piercing her tongue in their dorm) and they try to find a way for her to leave. However, they catch Lola talking on the phone to her friend telling her how well her little scheme has worked — she's been caught. Zoey and Nicole confront her and she admits to it and confesses that it was an acting exercise. Zoey and Nicole forgive her and they become the best of friends and are so thankful they've been together. Their affection can also be seen in the next two seasons.

In season three, Zoey and the rest of the gang return to PCA. She and her friends are 15 and Dustin is 12. Nicole has left PCA because she is diagnosed with Obsessive Male Gender Disorder (OMGD), and is sent to an all-girls school. This causes Zoey and Lola—much to their dismay—to become roommates with Quinn, after she's accidentally assigned to a dorm that doesn't exist by Coco, their dorm parent. At the end of the season, in the "Goodbye, Zoey?" TV film, Zoey transfers to Covington (a new boarding school) in England. After a webcam malfunction, she finds out that Chase loves her. She finds out when Chase left his video camera on when he was video chatting with Zoey when he was unaware he was telling his roommates about how he doesn't just miss Zoey, but loves her too.

In season four, the final season, Zoey returns to PCA, only to find that Chase transferred to Covington since he thought Zoey was there. Zoey and Chase reveal their love for each other and want to be together. Chase has to stay a full semester at Covington, though. When they finally had their first date over web chat, it didn't go well, so they decided to put off their relationship until Chase has returned. Meanwhile, Logan and Michael get a new roommate named James Garrett (Austin Butler), who eventually becomes Zoey's boyfriend. Quinn and Logan begin to date, but they hide their relationship from their friends. In the series finale, entitled "Chasing Zoey", the kids get ready for the prom. Zoey and James end their relationship, and Chase surprises Zoey once he returns home to PCA. They finally have their long awaited first kiss and begin to date. The last episode aired on May 2, 2008.

Cast [edit]

Main cast [edit]

Notes:

• Jamie Lynn Spears is the only cast member to appear in every episode.
• Despite being a main character that has had star billing in all four seasons, Dustin only appears in 25 episodes out of 65 in Zoey 101, which is only 38.46% of the episodes, and the least of all Zoey 101 main characters that had star billing in all seasons.
• Austin Butler guest starred as Danny in Season 3.

Special guest stars [edit]

• Miranda Cosgrove – Paige Howard (season 3)
• Jennette McCurdy – Trisha Kirby (season 2)
• Allison Scagliotti – Stacy (season 1)
• Madison Riley – Gretchen (season 3)
• Stephen Lunsford – Greg
• Doug Brochu – Blatzberg
• Daniella Monet – Rebecca (season 3)
• Drake Bell – himself (season 1)
• Janel Parrish – Sara

Episodes [edit]

TV films/Two-part episodes [edit]

Reruns/syndication [edit]

After the show aired its final episode in 2008, it was shown in reruns on Nickelodeon until November 23, 2008, though the last official airing of Zoey 101 on Nickelodeon aired on January 4, 2009 with the rebroadcast of the Chasing Zoey movie. After splitting from Noggin (now Nick Jr.) and becoming its own 24-hour cable TV channel, The N ran the series from December 31, 2007 to September 25, 2009, and continued to air on the channel after The N rebranded as TeenNick where it ran from September 28 to November 27, 2009. The channel aired the episode "Back to PCA", along with the Nickelodeon original movie Spectacular!, the iCarly TV special "iFight Shelby Marx", and the True Jackson, VP episode "True Crush", as part of the special programming block on Nickelodeon, "A Very Victoria Night", featuring Nickelodeon originals starring Victoria Justice, on October 10, 2009. Also Zoey 101 aired on Nickelodeon on February 8, 2009 through June 14, 2009 for Date Night purpouses only. It also aired on August 8, 2009 to promote iCarly's "iFight Shelby Marx" which guest stars Zoey 101's Victoria Justice, and was also reruning on Nick until November 27, 2009 in the US, however, on November 10, 2012, Nickelodeon re-aired the special The Curse of PCA.^{[citation needed]}

Zoey 101 returned to TeenNick with a six-hour Memorial Day marathon on May 31, 2010, and currently airs in a three episode block on weekdays and a four episode block on weekends, with the last episode of the block replaying the following day; from May 31-July 25, 2010, TeenNick aired only the final three seasons of Zoey 101 (with the exceptions of the season three episode "The Favor Chain", which the channel omits from the show's entire broadcast cycle for reasons unknown, and the season two episode "Haunted House", which the channel will only air during special Halloween-themed programming), but on July 26, 2010 TeenNick began airing episodes from the first season as well. In Canada, reruns of the series aired on Family weeknights at 10:00 PM EST/PST, then on weekdays at 1:30 PM EST/PST, as that series originally debuted on that channel on March 25, 2005 and the series finale aired on September 12, 2009 due to a late schedule. The episode "PCA Confidential" aired on December 14, 2007 because it was part of Season 3. The series has aired in Canada alongside Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, which originally aired on Family as well. Unlike Nickelodeon, Family aired the series in the 4:3 pan and scan format. Family no longer airs reruns of the series. In Latin America, the series is still airing on reruns, during the Nick at Nite block on Nickelodeon Latin America. The series still airs in the United States on Teen Nick.

Zoey 101 is now shown on Pop Girl in the UK and Ireland and on its hourly timeshift service. The first two seasons of Zoey 101 have already aired on the channel with the third season currently airing. Zoey 101 has been one of PopGirl's best performance in a TV series for a long time and is one of its highest rated shows. The fourth season is yet to be aired. PopGirl made deals with Swapit and many merchandise companies to release a range of small Zoey 101 merchandise gifts for a Swapit frenzy promoting PopGirl and Zoey 101. The items made include of nail art, bracelets, scarfs, necklaces, key chains, lip gloss, notebooks, pens, track suit clothing, silver heart pendants, signed postcards, rings, charms, scented nail polish and nail gems, earrings, dog tags, passport tags, wallets, badges, sew-on patches, eye pencils, DVDs, hair dryers, mugs and various other fashionable accessories. There was a competition to win an exclusive track suit from Zoey 101. Many of the items were from the magazine in the UK.

DVD releases [edit]

Nickelodeon has released all 4 seasons on DVD in Region 1 (United States only). Seasons 2, 3 and 4 are manufacture-on-demand (MOD) releases and are available only through Amazon.com.

Alliance Home Entertainment has released the first three seasons on DVD in Canada only.^[4][5] Season 3 was released on March 8, 2011.^[6]

In Region 4, Madman Entertainment has released the first two seasons on DVD in Australia.^[7][8]

Soundtrack [edit]

Zoey 101: Music Mix
Soundtrack album by Various artists
Released	March 7, 2006
Recorded	2004-06
Genre	Pop rock
Label	Nick Records/Columbia Records

Zoey 101: Music Mix is the soundtrack album for the Nickelodeon television series, Zoey 101, it was released on March 7, 2006. The album features music of the pop and rock genres. The theme song by Jamie Lynn Spears wasn't included in the final official soundtrack, only the instrumental version.

Track listing [edit]

Video game [edit]

Zoey 101 was released in March 2007 for Game Boy Advance. Another game called "Zoey 101: Field Trip Fiasco" was released on September 11, 2007 for Nintendo DS. Both video games were published by THQ and developed by Barking Lizards and had received poor reception and negative reviews from sites such as IGN and Common Sense.

Zoey 101 is a mini-game collection. Players must successfully complete each mini-game, then a dare, and then a final challenge. Dares and challenges are randomly chosen from three games in the level. Players can choose to play Mini-games freely in the main menu. GameZone awarded the game 4 out of 10, stating that the game was either "boring, frustrating, just plain unfun, or some combination of all three."^[16] Game Ratio lists this as the second worst GBA game of all time.^[17]

Field Trip Fiasco is about Zoey and her friends taking a field trip to a Park. The player controls Zoey by using the D-pad or touch screen to walk or run. The player runs around the Pacific Coast Academy (Zoey's School) completing fetch quests. They involve delivering things to people or collecting objects scattered around the school before time runs out. After finishing a fetch quest, the player plays a mini-game involving hosing off cars or picking up Frisbees. Zoey researches around the national park and talks to the camping club about Native Americans, goes to the library to learn about the park and takes a quiz about a national park.

Jack DeVries of IGN gave the game a 3.5/10 and criticized the game's boring gameplay, bland music and sound, and awkward controls. jkdmedia reviewed the game for GameZone on October 8, 2007 and gave the game a 2.8. It was criticized for its graphics and controls.^[18]

Critical reception [edit]

Although the series scored high with younger audiences, the show is believed to be one of Schneider's more criticized series. Some have called the show "utterly unreal" and "too innocent".^[19] Female characters on the show are shown wearing full makeup and miniskirts, despite their young age, yet focusing on rather feminist beliefs, often siding with female characters and looking at male characters in a more comedic and aggressive light. The children are shown to be very well mannered, making the series unusual compared to other Dan Schneider works. The school itself is rather unusual as it contains rather high society privileges (such as a sushi bar).

Some have criticized Jamie Lynn Spears's character, Zoey Brooks, calling her "perfect" and even referring to her as a "Barbie"^[20] with no emotion. Some have stated that while Spears's acting is fair, she should not have been given the lead role in the series. Her character is often criticized for not having any real problems. Zoey is shown as an attractive and popular young girl who gets good grades and is good at nearly every sport she tries. She makes the basketball team, gets the lead role in a school play, and on several occasions, has started her own businesses, all with little effort. Other characters have also been criticized, such as Quinn Pensky (Erin Sanders) who is often called "obnoxious" and noted for making "pointless" inventions and experiments, yet ridiculed mostly for doing well in the academic aspect.^[21] The Dean of the school is also viewed in an unbelievable light. One episode depicts him openly allowing a group of boys to attack Logan. Another depicts him, after much debate, giving up on a case simply because a student throws a tomato at his face.

Awards and honors [edit]

References [edit]

External links [edit]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Zoey 101

• Zoey 101 on Family
• Zoey 101 on Nickelodoen Australia
• Zoey 101 on Nickelodeon New Zealand
• Zoey 101 on Teen Nick
• Zoey 101 at the Internet Movie Database
• Zoey 101 at TV.com
• Zoey 101 Wiki