Posts tagged: The Muppets reviews

The Muppets S01E16 “Because… Love” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Mondays, 8pm

Writers: Scott Weinger, Emily R Wilson
Director: Randall Einhorn

Essential Plot Points:

• After talking to Rowlf and flipping a coin, Kermit decides that he’s going to ask Miss Piggy out again. He sends her a “kissy face” emoji.
• Leaving hospital, Miss Piggy finds out from Deadly that Kermit said “I love you” twice, and is thrilled that they’re going to get back together.
• However, after talking to the crew, Kermit starts to waver. Half the guys are on “Team Love”, happy for Miss Piggy and Kermit to rekindle their relationship, and the other half are on “Team Friend” because they know it will be traumatic.
• When Fozzie tells Kermit that by dating Miss Piggy again, he could lose his job, Kermit really panics. He decides to wait until that night’s show is over to tell Miss Piggy he doesn’t want to get back together.
• Then, after bumping into Jack White – who happens to be singing to “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life”, Kermit and Miss Piggy’s favourite song – he thinks it’s a sign. So he changes his mind again.
• Unfortunately, Miss Piggy discovers that he’s been flip-flopping about their relationship, and is horrified when Fozzie tells her Kermit flipped a coin for her. She calls the whole thing off and says she’s leaving the country to go to Thailand as soon as the show is finished.
• Jack White plays on the show, but it’s too late – Miss Piggy leaves.
• Rizzo and Yolanda get engaged.
• Kermit follows Miss Piggy onto the plane, pours out his heart to her… and she passes out before giving him a reply. They go to Thailand together.

Review:

This isn’t quite the barnstorming season finale it could have been, perhaps down to a rather downbeat tone and a slower gag hit-rate than usual. Additionally, while we all love Kermit and Miss Piggy, watching a couple dilly-dallying about getting back together is annoying rather than entertaining – several times during this you want to knock their fuzzy heads together and tell them to get on with it.

Still, Jack White’s rocked-out rendition of “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” in the studio is great fun, as are his talks with Kermit. White’s not the greatest of actors, but you can overlook such issues in a show like this – besides, he’s talking to a green felt puppet, so it’s hard to have an issue with realism.

The crew seem rather subdued in this episode: given that it’s the finale, you’d expect some seriously wacky hijinks, but even the Pros and Cons written on the whiteboard in their office are fairly standard (one line does mention “Piggy maternity leave”, which might be an interesting plot for next year if the frog and pig do make up in Thailand…).

Overall, it’s a shame that the show’s season finale – and, given that we still don’t know its future, possibly its series finale – is rather lacklustre. There isn’t really a sense that anything special is happening; it’s just another episode. Where’s the final twist? The pizzazz? The jaw-dropping ending?

But then again, we do get a little glimpse of Mahna Mahna And tThe Snowths, so all is right in the world again.

The Guests:

• Jack White

The Good:

• Rowlf gets Kermit to stroke him to calm down, as he’s a licensed therapy dog!

• Miss Piggy’s dramatic entrance, complete with femme fatale pose and wind machine, as she arrives to see Kermit is hilarious.

• Kermit hiding in a drawer is very sweet, especially when you notice he’s taken a little plant in there with him to make it feel more cheerful.

• When Miss Piggy tells her penguin and her dog that they’re “about to get a daddy”, their reactions are so cute. Never has a toy penguin flapped its flippers so adorably.
• “I want more flowers in that cannon!” yells Pepe, trying to set a romantic mood, which he then shatters by asking, “By the way, where are we on getting a human heart?”
• We discover that Kermit is Miss Piggy’s calzone pimp.

The Bad:

• Jack White sees Kermit behind the wheel and asks, astonished, “You can drive?” Which seems like a very frog-ist comment to us. Does he have a problem with amphibians driving cars?
• As far as breathtaking cliffhangers go, Miss Piggy falling asleep on a plane is very, very far from one.

The Random:

• Mahna Mahna And The Snowths have appeared in various Jim Henson shows singing their infamous nonsense song, but their most famous performance was on a 1969 episode of The Ed Sullivan Show:

• The song was originally composed by Piero Umiliani for a Swedish sex film named Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso [Sweden, Heaven and Hell].
• Best Quote: Bobo: “These plus-11s are piling up. I’d love permission to maul the next one who asks if I’m the bear from The Revenant.”

Reviewed by Jayne Nelson

• Read our reviews of previous episodes of The Muppets

The Muppets S01E14 “Little Green Lie” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Mondays, 8pm
Writers: Dave Caplan, Jordan Reddout, Gus Hickey
Director: Bill Barretta

Essential Plot Points:

• Kermit’s nephew Robin is coming to visit, but as the kid’s been going through a rough time Kermit doesn’t have the heart to tell him he’s split up with Miss Piggy.
• Kermit and Miss Piggy therefore spend a day pretending they’re still a couple – which causes consternation among the crew, who have to lie to Robin.
• Rizzo and Pepe are enjoying living with Gonzo, but now that Gonzo has moved his girlfriend in, they’re missing a wing man when they go out. So they audition Sam, Big Mean Carl and Chip.
• Robin, Kermit and Miss Piggy play Laser Tag, where a well-meaning but stupid Scooter accidentally lets slip that he’s glad Kermit and Miss Piggy are back together in front of the kid. A news crew also turns up to ask if it’s true they’ve reconciled. Robin knows the truth!
• Kermit and Miss Piggy apologise for deceiving Robin, who says he can’t understand why they’re not together as they’re perfect for each other. Cue Kermit and Miss Piggy trying to pretend it’s not true while they clearly still have feelings.
• To Rizzo and Pepe’s surprise, Sam, Big Mean Carl and Chip succeed in leaving the bar with Lara Spencer (Good Morning America host) but they leave them behind.
• Just as they’re mourning their loss, Gonzo turns up and becomes their wing man again. Hugs happen.

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Review:

There are so many genuinely brilliant one-liners and set-ups fired off in this episode it’s hard to keep track of them all, from Sweetums announcing: “My fish died. I hugged ’em too much,” to the end credits gag that has two models having a meta-pillowfight before one of them wonders how there are so many feathers, given that the pillows are memory foam; Camilla the chicken’’s indignant face when she realises they’re all from her chest is a treat. When The Muppets works this well it’s hard to imagine why it’s not one of the highest-rated, most-loved shows on television today, but that’s showbiz for you. Bah.

That said, as usual the writers have gone with a deeply familiar plot: two exes reuniting to pretend they’re together for someone who can’t handle the fact they’re apart. It could’ve been terrible, but a few things make it work: the fact the crew run away screaming when they see Robin; Fozzie trying to act as though Kermit and Miss Piggy are together and totally ruining it; Scooter being unable to lie, then unwittingly doing so (“I’m the first person ever to lie on Twitter!” he wails). Oh, and Kermit and Miss Piggy, of course, who somehow muster more chemistry as pieces of felt and other material than some human couples do. Amazing.

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The Guests:

• Lara Spencer, TV host

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The Good:

• The Swedish Chef has famously talked in gibberish since his creation, and people always understand him. Until now… “I can’t understand a word this guy says!” laughs Robin.
• Zoot’s perfect stoner humour in action: “I tried to leave last night but the sign said ‘Fire Door’. I didn’t wanna risk it.”
• Why is it not surprising that Miss Piggy is good at Laser Tag? We also love the kid that runs up and asks, “Are you Miss Piggy?” To which she replies: “HIYAAA!” and zaps him. “Never meet your heroes,” Kermit says ruefully.
• Drunk Pepe is the greatest thing that has ever been on The Muppets. “Maybe I will become a priest,” he burbles, utterly sloshed. “It’s just another kind of turtleneck…”

• Actually, scratch that: watching a chicken pecking out a message on an iPhone could be the other greatest thing to have ever been on The Muppets. Why is it funny? WHY? We can’t analyse it. It just is.

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The Bad:

• What’s with all the references to eating each other in this episode? Kermit says: “We can finally go out for barbecue with a clear conscience,” while referring to leaving Miss Piggy behind; Big Mean Carl eats a dog (Fozzy: “Foo-Foo!” Carl: “He got the ball. He’s happy”); Rizzo announces he won’t eat chicken or snails; there’s a deeply uncomfortable gag about eggs based on the fact Gonzo’s dating a chicken… what kind of messed-up world do these guys all live in?!

And The Random:

• These candid shots of Robin’s last visit are superb.

• Best Quote: Big Mean Carl, after coughing up Foo-Foo: “Do you like wet puppies, Lara?”

Reviewed by Jayne Nelson

• Read our reviews of previous episodes of The Muppets

The Muppets S01E13 “Got Silk?” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Mondays, 8pm

Writers: Shane Kosakowski, Franklin Hardy
Director: Randall Einhorn

Essential Plot Points:

• Miss Piggy, who is in the show less and less as all the others are getting their own sketches, suddenly has the time to stop and think about her life… and realises she has no friends.
• With the help of her assistant Deadly she sets out to find a BFF, enrolling in an aerial silks class to befriend a fellow performer. Alas, her scheme doesn’t work.
• Meanwhile, Pizza is still meddling with the show, deciding that Kermit needs to include a sketch about a frozen yoghurt brand to please the sponsors. Kermit refuses, as it says his writers have more integrity.
• Pizza sneakily invites said writers – Gonzo, Pepe and Rizzo – out to lunch, though actually takes them to his hugely expensive tailor to get suited up. While there, he talks them into espousing the merits of frozen yoghurt.
• Kermit is horrified when the writers return, brainwashed, but once he points out to them that they’ve been bought, they relent. However, they really want to keep the suits.
• While at the tailor’s, the guys bumped into RuPaul, and so they all come up with a plan to get RuPaul on the show for a sketch about fashion that incorporates the suits, so the guys can keep them on the show’s wardrobe budget. Pizza is not amused.
• Miss Piggy is distracted during the show because she can’t stop thinking about having no friends. Deadly saves her, helping her to sing a song, and she realises Deadly is her best friend after all.
• She takes the entire Muppet crew to see Deadly’s production of Clueless to thank him.

Review:

Yet again Miss Piggy gets to walk that fine line between being an utter cow – for example, trying to make friends with someone and rubbing it in that she always flies business class – and being a lonely, vulnerable pig at heart. It would be easy to hate her: with all her whining and bitchiness, she certainly isn’t someone we’d like to go for a drink with. (Imagine how she’d react if the bar served pork scratchings!)

And yet, somehow, the writers of The Muppets both past and present always manage to make her likeable, and here’s a fine example. It’s truly heartrending seeing her look around at people enjoying themselves with pals while she sits there alone. Thankfully, Deadly is at hand to cheer her up and save the day with a surprisingly moving song together. So all’s well that ends well – although the sight of Deadly dressed up as the star of Clueless: The Stage Play is burned into our retinas forever. So, er, thanks for that.

The B-plot is a staple for any show about making a show: the network wanting to incorporate ads and the creative team refusing. What makes it entertaining is Pizza, who manages to channel both Aziz Ansari’s Tom Haverford from Parks & Recreation and every annoying hipster you’ve ever met, basically becoming the dick-you-love-to-hate. Mind you, he did pull off a coup by buying Gonzo, Pepe and Rizzo those suits, if only so they can re-enact Reservoir Dogs in the episode’s best moment.

The Guests:

• RuPaul
• Ingrid Michaelson

The Good:

• There’s always so much attention to detail where Muppets are involved – Kermit nervously clicking a pen as he calls Denise, for instance, is a tiny thing that’s easy to miss but suits his character perfectly.

• Miss Piggy still has her pet penguin, Gloria Estefan. Note how it’s living in an ice bucket in her dressing room. Because of course it is.
• Pizza pretends to talk Italian with his tailor and says, “Giovanni Ribisi”. Last we heard, tha’’s an actor, not a greeting, you big poser!
• In a throwaway, easy-to-miss gag, there’s a Post-It Note on Big Mean Carl’s desk that says, “Stupid called”.
• “Could you always wear your pants in the office?” asks Kermit, as Gonzo removes his trousers. To which Rizzo replies, “Okay, Mr Naked.” One-nil to the rat.
• Pepe’s Barack Obama impression is just him going “uh”, and somehow it sounds exactly like the President.

The Bad:

• Given that the episode is called “Got Silk?”, you’d think there’d be more emphasis on Miss Piggy’s adventures at the aerial silk class – sadly, we barely see her do anything. Still, it looked fun!

The Random:

• Janice mentions that she is building a wicker man. We dread to think what for, but Beaker had probably better look out.
• Best Quote: Kermit, on why he avoids hot tubs: “Just too many bad family stories involving vats of hot water.”

Reviewed by Jayne Nelson

• Read our reviews of previous episodes of The Muppets

The Muppets S01E12 “A Tail Of Two Piggies” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Mondays, 8pm

Writers: Nell Scovell, Steve Rudnick

Director: Randall Einhorn

Essential Plot Points:

• Miss Piggy struts her stuff for the press at the premiere of Zootopia, but suffers a slight wardrobe malfunction when her tail pops out of her dress.
• The network orders her to apologise on the show amidst protests.
• However, a young fan comes up to Miss Piggy and explains that seeing her tail made her feel better about the time her own tail popped out during gym class and she was bullied for it.
• Miss Piggy suddenly realises that she can be a role model, and sets out to change the world by tweeting she will “#UnveilTheTail” on the show that night.
• Unfortunately the network threatens to fire everybody, but Kermit comes up with an alternative plan: everybody else wears tails instead.
• Joan Jett joins in. (Joan Jett, guys!)
• Elsewhere, Gonzo is still sad about his relationship breaking up, so rents a bachelor pad with Rizzo and Pepe to help himself move on.

Review:

Now here’s an episode that’s firing on all cylinders, rather beautifully parodying our looks-obsessed age by having Miss Piggy accidentally showing off her twirly tail and scandalising everybody… while other species quite happily parade their perfectly-straight tails without anybody saying a word. Add to this a pointed little game that has Animal trying to guess Kim Kardashian’s tweets from Miss Piggy’s and the writers are basically telling us that modern society is vacuous and petty – yes, we see what you did there guys!

It does work, however, as there is something rather shocking about that little curl of tail popping out of Miss Piggy’s dress. Although, to be fair, it’s more shocking that the caterers on her show serve bacon…

There’s another subtext going on here, too, as Gonzo, Pepe and Rizzo throw a pool party and can only entice ladies along if they show they’re supportive of feminism. Wow, was the original Muppet Show this subversive in the ’70s? Course, the sight of prawn Pepe chatting up a human does open a whole new can of worms we’re really not sure about.

And then, in a rather glorious finale, none other than Joan Jett (Joan Jett, guys!) comes on the show and sings “Bad Reputation”, bringing the house down. Bravo, The Muppets. Bravo.

The Guests:

• Joan Jett (Joan Jett, guys!)
• Sharknado 1, 2, 3 and 4 star Ian Ziering

The Good:

• Miss Piggy says she’s spent her career downplaying being a pig. “You are aware your name is Miss Piggy?” asks an incredulous Dudley. Her reply? “So? Letterman doesn’t work at the post office.” Can’t really argue with that one.
• Rizzo to Gonzo, about his ex-girlfriend: “You gotta let this go! That chicken has crossed the road!”
  Pepe: “And you gotta stop wondering why.”
  …The dialogue in this episode really is top-notch.

• Big Mean Carl’s cousin, Carla, is a blast. But what happened to Scooter? He got eaten by Carl!
• Sweetums blunders around the show’s set against a painted skyline. Kermit takes one look at him and says, “It’s like a Japanese monster movie.” It’s a tiny, throwaway line, but boy, is it spot on. Why hasn’t there been a Godzilla Vs Sweetums movie yet?
• Miss Piggy says her new album will be called Piggy 25 – a reference to Adele naming her albums after her own age. Thankfully Miss Piggy, who is most definitely not 25, qualifies her statement by adding, “Give or take.”
• Animal recognises a quote by Winston Churchill? Is he a secret history buff? A well-read connoisseur? A genius? THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING.

The Bad:

• Miss Piggy is fond of using waterboarding to maintain her looks. “I tell my waterboardist everything,” she says proudly. Jokes about waterboarding on a kids’ show? Well, taste-wise it’s probably not the best idea, but to be honest we’re more worried about how she tells her waterboardist everything given that her mouth would be full of water… There’s a puzzler.
• See how Disney snuck in a little ad for Zootopia (aka Zootropolis in Europe – read our review here) at the start of this episode? Well, you can’t really blame them – it’s a cracking film. But what next? Subtle prods for viewers to go to Disneyworld? Plush toys of the Muppets cast and instructions for where to buy them? It’s a slippery slope…

The Random:

• The reference to the One Million Angry Parents Association protesting about Miss Piggy’s tail is a sly reference to the right-wing One Million Moms organisation, who regularly complain about the immorality of US life. A puzzled Kermit says, “I can only see three of them.” Sam replies, “They like to round up.” One Million Moms is, funnily enough, also fond of doing this, as their numbers are actually in the thousands.
• One Million Moms, by the way, don’t like The Muppets because Kermit doesn’t wear trousers. …Seriously. We’re not making this up.

• Best Quote: Scooter, holding a newspaper: “Did you guys see this?”
  Chip: “Yeah, it looks like they printed a computer on some weird paper.”

Reviewed by Jayne Nelson

• Read our reviews of previous episodes of The Muppets

The Muppets S01E11 “Swine Song” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Mondays, 8pm

Writers: Gregg Mettler & Emily Wilson
Director: Randall Einhorn

Essential Plot Points:

• The Muppets return from holiday with tales to tell of their adventures (and, in Miss Piggy’s case, lots of ponchos from Argentina).
• Kermit has promised Denise that he will set boundaries with both work and his ex.
• Unfortunately, a network head arrives with a “branding guru” named Pizza (pronounced, uh, “Pasha”) to revamp the show.
• Kermit and Miss Piggy talk to Pizza’s former clients, comedians Key and Peele, who say that Pizza’s changes lost them their jobs. Fearing the show is about to be cancelled, the Muppets go into crisis mode.
• Eventually they come up with some changes to the show and keep the network happy.
• Denise, however, sees how Kermit and Miss Piggy gaze at each other while they sang a song during the broadcast, and so she dumps Kermit.
• Elsewhere, Dudley has bonded with a penguin.

Review:

It seems somewhat fitting that The Muppets returns from hiatus with a storyline about the possible cancellation of the show – given that, as we write this, there’s still no confirmation that it will return for a second season. It’s certainly had a rocky year, what with personnel changes and some controversy over a rather “adult” feel to its first episode, but since then The Muppets has grown into a genuinely hilarious, heartwarming half-hour that we’d be sad to lose. Hopefully the real-life series will experience a happy ending like the one we see in this episode, although probably without its real-life frog producer being dumped by his real-life pig girlfriend.

As usual, what we get here is a simple plot enlivened by some marvellous quips, such as Pepe announcing that he’s written some “pretty intense” letters to Gloria Estefan over the years, or Denise revealing that she signed up for a 5K run without knowing how far a “K” was. And the premise of the network sending someone in to revamp a show is a veritable cliché in sitcoms – no doubt reflecting the horror of it happening in the real world of TV, and the writers’ fear of it happening to them – but it’s a shame we didn’t see more of the hilariously named “Pizza”. What horrors would he have come up with if left to his own devices, eh?

The subplot between Kermit and Denise has been on the cards for ages; quite how she’s put up with him for so long as he works with his larger-than-life ex is a mystery. Poor Kermit – who will he turn to for support now? Is he really destined to spend his life with Miss Piggy? And does she still love him, or is her life all about fame and ponchos? We can only wait and see…

The Guests:

• Key & Peele

The Good:

• Miss Piggy “rescues” a penguin from the bottom of South America and names it Gloria Estefan because it’s the only Spanish name she knows. Also, this penguin is exceptionally cute.
• Kermit: “Not everyone here is tech-savvy.”
  Animal, speaking to a muffin: “Siri? Siri?”
• Dudley staring silently at Scooter is the scariest damn thing we’ve seen since The Blair Witch Project.
• The Muppet Show theme sung a cappella by the team is just lovely – why can’t all office staff act this way? We’d love to be sitting around a desk one day and suddenly break into an impromptu version of, say, the He-Man theme…

The Bad:

• Pepe The Uber Driver. Given Pepe’s usual behaviour, this is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

• Miss Piggy dressed as Miley Cyrus. Our eyes...

And The Random:

• The song Kermit and Miss Piggy sing together is “In Spite Of Ourselves” by US country/folk singer John Prine. The lyrics have been slightly watered down for younger viewers, mind: “She gets it on like the Easter bunny” has become “She makes a face when my jokes are funny”, and the line “He’s got more balls than a big brass monkey” is mysteriously absent.
• Best Quote: Network exec: “He’s branded Katy Perry, Key and Peele, some warlord, and that dog on Instagram whose tongue keeps on sticking out.”

Reviewed by Jayne Nelson

• Read our reviews of previous episodes of The Muppets

The Muppets S01E09 “Going, Going, Gonzo” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Mondays, 8pm
Writers: Jordan Reddout, Gus Hickey (teleplay), Shane Kosakowski, Franklin Hardy (story)
Director: Randall Einhorn

Essential Plot Points:

• Gonzo reminisces about his old stuntman days and decides to fire himself out of a cannon – finishing the one great stunt he never managed.
• Unfortunately, the odds of death are high. So he chickens out.
• Scooter decides he’s not enough of a daredevil himself, so bravely declares he’s going to get his ear pierced.
• Unfortunately, he also chickens out. But while doing so, he fights the band and basically becomes a badass karate demon, thus proving he’s a daredevil after all.
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt sneakily defeats everybody at poker.
• Dave Grohl sings “Learn To Fly” on the show, and while watching him, Gonzo decides to be brave after all – and he doesn’t die doing the stunt! Cue Kermit’s “Yayyyyyyy!” flaily arms.

Review:

Well done to the showrunners this week for not only snagging two mega-profile guest stars but also coming up with a genuinely hilarious script, from Miss Piggy trying to flog her new Piggy Water (which inexplicably contains tonnes of fat and should be labelled as a sauce – go figure) to Gordon-Levitt’s brilliant speech about how he if can play young Bruce Willis in Looper, he can damn well win at cards by acting. Laughs? This episode’s got ’em. Bravo!

And best of all, there’s the Dave Grohl versus Animal drum-off, which is truly one of the greatest Muppet moments. This went viral after airing, and with good reason – the Foo Fighters legend is clearly fulfilling a crazy childhood dream, and we can only imagine what the hell was going through the minds of the puppeteers controlling that bonkers Animal puppet (probably, “We can’t believe we’re getting paid for this!”). This show has been doing fairly well over in the US, but it certainly hasn’t been barnstorming as much as it could have done – let’s hope this wonderful, glorious, hilarious clip will now put The Muppets on everybody’s radar. And rightfully so.

The Guests:

• Joseph Gordon-Levitt
• Dave Grohl

The Good:

• Piggy Water comes with lipstick already on the rim. This is such a genius/gross idea it’s astonishing nobody’s thought of doing it for real yet (though we suspect Kim Kardashian’s publicity team are now stroking their collective chins thoughtfully).

• “Joseph Gordon-Levitt! I hear you started out as a child actor. Why’d you give that up?” Miss Piggy’s banter was clearly written by Fozzie, who no doubt meant it seriously…

• Miss Piggy falls into a “glamour coma” after being electrocuted. We may laugh, but who wants to bet that, somewhere in LA, this kind of thing actually happens?
• Why is Animal crunching ice cubes so damn funny?
• Ditto Animal jumping on Scooter’s back during the fight. Animal most definitely rules this episode.

The Bad:

• Hard to think of anything this episode that doesn’t quite work. Gordon-Levitt’s pronunciation of “worship” as “warship” during “Fly Me To The Moon” might count.

The Random:

• Why does Gonzo say that if he hits the ground, there’ll be an explosion of fur, not feathers? Surely he’s a bird? Then again, nobody seems to know what Gonzo is. According to his performer, Dave Goelz, in an interview from the ’90s: “Nobody knows except his parents, and they’re not talking. It was always one of those taboo subjects around the dinner table.” He’s usually classed as a “Whatever”.
• Best Quote: Miss Piggy: “I need this! I lost a lot of money on my shower gel! It’s still a mystery to my why nobody bought Hog Wash.”

Reviewed by Jayne Nelson

• Read more reviews of The Muppets

The Muppets S01E08 “Too Hot To Handler” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Mondays, 8pm
Writers: Shane Kosakowski, Franklin Hardy (teleplay); Margee Magee, Angeli Millan (story)
Director: Matt Sohn

Essential Plot Points:

• Fozzie tells Kermit that he’s going to ask Becky to move in with him, but Kermit is worried.
• He arranges a double date to a pub quiz to suss out Becky – and discovers that she cheats!
• He’s proved wrong when he confronts her, though, and Fozzie is not happy.
• Scooter books Chelsea Handler for the show and they start dating…
• …but things move way too fast for our little dork.

Review:

First up, an important note: people who cheat on pub quizzes are evil. Like, really evil. Murdering puppies and drowning kittens evil. If you know someone who Googles answers during a quiz – or, worse, you are one (gasp!) – rest assured that there’s a special place in Hell just for cheaters, and once down there they’ll be rubbing shoulders with people who press all the buttons in a lift or don’t say ‘Thank you’ when you hold a door open for them. Curse them! Curse them all!

And so, in case you hadn’t guessed, we are 100% on Kermit’s side in this episode, because if Becky was indeed cheating and was pulling the wool over Fozzie’s eyes, the gormless bear had every right to know about the kind of wicked creature he was dating. The fact it turns out that Becky was innocent… well. Ahem. Yes. Awkward. Still, Kermit and Fozzie sorted it out in the end, so that’s okay.

Meanwhile, the Scooter/Chelsea Handler subplot is rather amusing, with poor Scooter falling for the x-rated TV host before realising that she’s x-rated in real life, too (and, as he tells her, now he can’t just flick over to the Weather Channel while he cools down!). It’s sweet to see Scooter getting his first kiss (we assume) and even sweeter to see Chelsea fall for him – this is a woman who, according to Scooter’s Wikipedia-memorising, once dated 50 Cent. Talk about a contrast. We’re rooting for these guys!

The Guests:

• Chelsea Handler

The Good:

• Scooter doesn’t think he’s a dork, but he cries, “Weeeee!” every time he rides an escalator. Bless. Bet he also makes USS Enterprise “ssssshhhh” noises when he walks through automatic doors. And come on, don’t pretend you don’t do that yourself.
• The band become convinced that Kermit is a robot, and their conversation about it is hilarious. Dr Teeth & The Electric Mayhem were created in 1975 and gently mocked the counterculture of the time (hippies, stoners and acid-freaks). And yet, 40 years on, they seem just as relevant as they did back then – incredible, really.
• “Canine-Americans still can’t hold public office,” complains Rowlfe. And boy, ain’t that just a can of worms waiting to be opened in this Muppet-filled world? Do they have equal rights? Can they vote? Are they fully integrated into society elsewhere on the planet? Is there Muppet racism? Our minds are boggling…
• Beaker speaks. It doesn’t matter what he says. It never does. It’s just funny.

The Bad:

• This is a nice little episode with a few laugh-out-loud moments – most notably, Bobo suddenly looming into shot after Kermit’s argument with Fozzie and asking, “Hug?” But there’s nothing here that’s particularly striking; it feels like filler.

The Random:

• Several times, we see Kermit talking to the invisible documentary crew’s camera before discovering he’s actually talking to a colleague. You can’t help but feel the show could do a lot more with this kind of casual fourth-wall-breaking.
• Best quote: Rizzo: “How did it go with Chelsea? And don’t skip the dirty stuff – I was born in a sewer, you are not gonna shock me.”

Reviewed by Jayne Nelson

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The Muppets S01E07 “Pigs In A Blackout” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Mondays, 8pm
Writers: Margee Magee, Angeli Millan (teleplay); Steve Rudnick, Emily Wilson (story)
Director: Matt Sohn

Essential Plot Points:

• Kermit is so stressed at work that he faints, so is sent off to a “mindfulness” clinic to recover.
• Scooter fills in while he’s away… and things do not go well.
• Sam continues his terrible attempts to woo Janice.
• Jason Bateman distracts Kermit at the clinic, getting him thrown out, but Rolf saves the day by giving Kermit an idea about how to relax.

Review:

Those who find themselves wondering “How on Earth does Kermit cope with all these maniacs each week?” finally get their answer in this episode: sometimes, he doesn’t. And frankly, if we had to deal with everything from malfunctioning lifts (imagine if Miss Piggy had been in that lift for hours – she’d have killed someone once she was released!) to Carl the receptionist attacking delivery guys, we’d probably have a fainting spell ourselves.

However, the crux of the story is that once Kermit goes off on holiday and Scooter takes over, things go to hell because Kermit is no longer in charge – which seems a bit unfair, given the chaos Kermit already deals with. The Miss Piggy show is always disorganised, so it’s a bit rich to show us the place falling apart and blame Scooter. Plus, all the poor guy does is flick an air-con switch! Still, it’s a learning experience for him – in that he doesn’t run away – and all’s well that ends well.

At least there’s a ton of humour to be mined from Miss Piggy losing all her clothes to condensation (“My babies! MY BABIES!”) and it’s also a great excuse to bash Beaker for the first time since the first episode… twice! Poor Beaker.

The Guests:

• Jason Bateman
• Pentatonix (a band who won season three of The Sing-Off)

The Good:

• There’s some fabulous witty banter this week, with excellent plays on words (Kermit: “I feel awful!” Bobo: “Falafel? Could you get me one of those, please?”), general silliness (Kermit: “I want everybody know I’m fine.” Zoot: “Are you sure? You look a little green”) and clever observations (Rolf: “I don’t like those New Age places. They tell you to relax and then they stick you outside with a million squirrels who won’t mind their own damn business”).
• The clinic is amusingly twee, with Kermit being asked to study a blueberry intently before eating it and think about his bottom as he’s sitting on it. Ah, California.
• The sight of Kermit mingling with full-sized humans will never not be funny.

• Kermit sings “The Rainbow Connection”! D’awww! This was the introductory song to 1979’s The Muppet Movie, and was nominated for an Oscar. It’s lovely to hear it here, as a little nod to the Muppets’ long, fondly remembered history.

The Bad:

• We don’t find out what happened at the kids’ show. Did the ungrateful Jason simply take Kermit’s help and never contact him again? What a git.
• Carl on reception is wonderful. WE LOVE HIM. But really… he wouldn’t last ten minutes in that job, would he? Surely he would’ve been sued to kingdom-come by now?
• Dudley calls Miss Piggy “sausagey”. Which is, when you think about it, really, really inappropriate. As is this week’s episode title…

The Random:

• Jason sees Kermit and announces, “Kermit The Frog!” To which Kermit replies, “Jason The Bateman!” And suddenly we’re wondering what a bateman is.
• Best Quote: Gonzo: “What is the oldest saying in Hollywood?” Scooter: “’This is where we’ll put Hollywood?’”

Reviewed by Jayne Nelson

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