Sabrina Carpenter (center) with Fozzie, Miss Piggy, Kermit, Gonzo and other Muppets Mitch Haaseth/Disney Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text "Isn't it wonderful to be back in the theater again giving the people what they truly want?" Miss Piggy inquires early in The Muppet Show, a half-hour special premiering on ABC and Disney+ this week as a soft test run for full-fledged series return. A quick refresher course on what Disney and the Muppets have been giving audiences over the past decade instead of giving the people (me) what they (I) truly want: The Muppet Show The Bottom Line Feels right, if not perfect. Airdate: 3 a.m. ET (Disney+) and 9 p.m. (ABC) Wednesday, Feb. 4Cast: Sabrina Carpenter, Seth Rogen, Bill Barretta, Dave Goelz, Eric Jacobson, Peter Linz, David Rudman, Matt VogelDirector/Executive Producer: Alex Timbers In 2015, there was The Muppets, an ABC sitcom built around a Miss Piggy-fronted talk show. The attempt to deliver something more grownup from the Muppets, complete with an ongoing estrangement between Kermit and Miss Piggy, had a tonally misjudged pilot, improved slightly and then was canceled. Related Stories TV Critic's Notebook: Trevor Noah's Final Grammys Hosting Gig Is a Dud, but Big Performances and Passionate Speeches Carry the Telecast Music Grammys Snubs: Sabrina Carpenter Shut Out Despite Six Noms as Lola Young, Billie Eilish Surprise In 2020, there was Muppets Now, an oddly spare "unscripted" series about the Muppets doing a digital series of reality elements overseen by Scooter. It felt closer to the original The Muppet Show format, only with a scattered assortment of characters and interactions. It had the aesthetic of COVID-produced series, even if it was shot pre-COVID. It lasted one season. You don't remember it. In 2023, there was The Muppets Mayhem, focused on Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. It had some funny moments and an impressive array of music industry guest stars, but it felt like a strained spinoff from a series - that would be The Muppet Show - that didn't actively exist. It lasted one season. In addition, there have been several one-off holiday stories and at least one animated reboot of Muppet Babies. It seemed that the powers that be would do almost anything to avoid simply bringing back The Muppet Show, a fact that I've harped on in my reviews for ... each of them? So yes, Miss Piggy, I couldn't be happier to have you back in the theater again giving the people what they truly want. Like much of my generation (and several surrounding generations), I have a Pavlovian "joy" response when the band strikes up the Muppet Show theme - exactly the sort of reaction that deserves to be weaponized and commodified. Bring it on. I'm not going to tell you that this Muppet Show, with a 30-minute running time sans commercials, is my Muppet Show platonic ideal. Too many of the punchlines feel like first-draft jokes in desperate need of refinement, but I can fully buy that the Muppets (whom I'm treating as real people for purposes of this review) might be comedically rusty after having not participated in the variety format since the '90s offshoot Muppets Tonight, which was basically The Muppet Show with a different name. This is not The Muppet Show at its best, but it's a return to what the Muppets do best. Directed and steered by Alex Timbers, with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg among its executive producers, The Muppet Show keeps things chaotically simple. It is, as Kermit observes in his opening monologue, a return to the same theater as the original with the same conceit: that Kermit and pals are putting on a live show, featuring the whole felt ensemble and at least one celebrity guest host. Invariably, anarchy reigns both on stage and off in the wings, usually exacerbated by the triangular tensions - sometimes romantic, sometimes simply professional - produced between the weekly celebrity guest, Kermit and Miss Piggy. For the special, the producers have landed a perfect host in Sabrina Carpenter, a multi-hyphenate talent who checks all of the boxes established for one version of an exemplary Muppet companion. She can sing and dance, and she generates a comic sensibility that's at once childlike and wise. That means she's capable of interacting with the Muppets as a peer, embracing their zaniness with appreciative wonder, and as a more mature adult with a different definition of "kink" from what Kermit expects. Carpenter has an instant rapport with Miss Piggy, recognizing similarities in their respective personae. But in this incarnation, she mostly reminded me, in stature and costuming and overall attitude, of Dolly Parton - who bizarrely never hosted the original series, but welcomed Kermit and Miss Piggy to her own 1987 variety show. The producers make the comparison