The Muppets: 6 Highlights And 4 Lowlights From The Pilot

Some of the most enjoyable scenes of the Muppets franchise involve all the characters together bouncing dumb jokes off one another, and this first episode captures that beautifully with its writers' room scenes. Right off the bat there's a production meeting, and opening on the pure chaos of everyone goofing around and throwing paper airplanes is absolutely classic. This allows for lots of rapid-fire jokes and great little character interactions like Pepe's conversation with Scooter about his cousin's wedding. There's also the amazing Bunsen and Beaker moment, the gag which feels closest in line with the original series. Who could ever get tired of Beaker being harmed in increasingly insane ways?

It's moments like these where Kermit being a bit of a curmudgeon works much better. He comes across as a frustrated guy who's trying to get everyone under control, and since everything is so chaotic, you understand his behavior. Kermit being a bit short tempered here is fine, as opposed to when he's just lobbing insults around.

This type of scene is something the show will hopefully keep going forward: before launching into individual storylines, every character can be thrown together for these big group interactions. That would provide a nice balance between the crazy Muppet antics and the one on one scenes we see later on.