The Muppets (2015)

So far, there's some laughter in the early episodes of The Muppets and a ton of built-in affection, but the wait for a great show continues.

The result is pleasant enough, but something of a mixed bag.

The truth is, bold as this creative decision was--and executed quite successfully, too--it’s jarring, at best. At worst, it’s a bastardization.... All of that said, in a perverse way, this maturation of the franchise may be exactly what was needed if The Muppets has any hope of being the same lightning rod or have the same longevity as the original Muppet Show, which ran from 1976 to 1981.

The puppetry and however the heck they film these creations display excellent technical artistry. Alas, The Muppets arrives with two flaws: rather less funny, and with too much Miss Piggy.

Certainly, if the question is, can you make a dark, slightly depressing series starring the Muppets, the answer, obviously, is yes. Is this an inappropriate use of the characters? I don't know. Is it strange? Certainly.

The first two episodes of The Muppets, which has its debut on Tuesday, are sometimes funny and have flashes of the original’s charm. But they also reflect a definition of “adult” that could stand to grow up.

Co-creators Bill Prady and Bob Kushell have given the gang the right setting. Now, they just need to figure out how they fit in a selfie-driven world. Newer Muppets like Pepe the King Prawn do better than veteran ones.

The dialogue is funny, but the longer-range question is whether it’s funny enough to keep viewers coming back week after week.

As long as you accept that The Muppets will never quite reach the heights of its forebears, there’s still plenty of room for the show to grow from its trudging pilot.

Bill Prady tries to update Kermit and Company with adult humor Miss Piggy and Kermit have called it quits, draining the Muppets of the warmth and love that made them so lovely in the first place.

It’s hard to get past this iteration of Miss Piggy’s unpleasantness because that’s all there is: She’s not a fully developed moi, just a set of high-maintenance tics. Making Missy Piggy so awful has dour ramifications for the rest of the Muppets: Why are they working so hard for this pig?.... The Muppet who comes off worst is Kermit.... His voice, previously so adorable, began to sound to me mealy and weak, like the vocal equivalent of pleated khakis.

There are some solid jokes and gags scattered throughout the first two episodes. But as I watched them, it was difficult not to feel a sense of deflation that strayed into disappointment. It became more and more clear over the course of those episodes that The Muppets had been jammed into a format that doesn’t quite suit them.