tek's rating: ¾

The Muppets, on ABC
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This 2015 series has the same title as the 2011 movie, which I didn't see until this show went on its first season winter hiatus. Anyway, it's the first regular TV series to feature the Muppets since Muppets Tonight ended in 1998. It features a show-within-a-show, "Up Late with Miss Piggy," a late night talk show hosted by... Miss Piggy. Kermit is the executive producer, and most of the other Muppets have jobs working on that show, as well. (Fozzie is Piggy's sidekick, and kind of reminds me here of Hank from The Larry Sanders Show.) An extra layer of drama (and humor, I guess) comes from the fact that Kermit and Piggy used to be dating, but he had broken up with her some time before the real show began. So it's awkward for them to be working together. It's even further complicated by the fact that Kermit is currently dating another Muppet pig, Denise, who works for the network that Piggy's show is on. Also, Fozzie is dating a human (non-Muppet) named Becky (Riki Lindhome), whose parents disapprove of her interspecies relationship. And the show (I mean "The Muppets") is done in a mockumentary style, a la "The Office" (which I didn't watch) or Modern Family, so we occasionally see characters addressing the camera.

It was apparently somewhat retooled for the second half of the first season, in February 2016. It's supposed to be getting lighter and more fun than it was in the first half of the season, though so far I haven't noticed a major difference. However, by the end of the season, Denise has broken up with Kermit, and we're left with a cliffhanger that suggests Kermit and Piggy might get back together. Anyway, I enjoyed the show well enough, but I didn't mind too much that it was cancelled.


Muppet shows