The whole crew just returned from hiatus, and everyone is rested, recharged and ready to get back to work. But when a new branding guru (Utkarsh Ambudkar) comes in to revamp “Up Late,” the gang rallies together and realizes that they don’t need gimmicks and hijinks; they just need each other and a couple of familiar tunes to get them back on track.

The Muppets returns after a holiday break and a much talked about reworking of the show. This first episode has some good and bad, with a lot good, and most of that around the fact the show faces down this change, and outright mocks it.

By handling the pivot the way the show has, it feels like a natural progression to get the show back  to what individuals might expect from the classic The Muppet Show. There’s some musical numbers, some cheesy bits, and the show purposely does all of that working in the changes decreed by the network.

There’s some awesome to that take and the show doesn’t throw away everything that came before. There’s still some really messed up comments from the Muppets. There’s jokes only adults will get. There’s twisted humor. There’s also Kermit singing, guest appearances, and a bit lighter tone, veering from the previous one that some thought was too mean.

The episode reminds me of one of the previous ones that had a lot of elements from the classic Muppet show.

I’d imagine this will be a slow progression, which is the smart way to go, and it looks like they’ve got a decent balance so far with what they’re doing. We’ll see where it goes from here, but so far so good.

If you gave up on the show, it’s worth checking out this “revamped” direction, it might be closer to what you were hoping for.

Overall Rating: 8.2