Review: Fraggle Rock on Apple TV+ is the Muppet series Disney+ wishes it had

The Fraggles are back. They're a blast to watch again.

Modern-day Muppet access is no exception to the long-standing problem of fragmented content in the video-streaming world. If you want to watch all of Jim Henson's films and series, you'll need to subscribe to Disney+, Apple TV+, and HBO Max. Fans would be able to feast upon the entire Muppet-verse with a unified Henson+ service. Alas.

Classic Muppet content isn't the only thing that those streaming services divvy up. They each feature a new series from the Jim Henson Company, either with new characters or old favorites. Keeping up with all that content has been difficult, but we at Ars have done our best, always with the hope that one of the new properties will deliver a good-enough mix of nostalgia, production values, and freshness.

This week, there is a new life breathed into the formerly exclusive universe with the premiere of Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock.

Getting ready for Uncle Matt's return.

There is an underground maze.

Mokey steps in to soothe Wembley. There are some really cool effects of both Fraggles blinking. It's great.

Prepare to be blown away by wet Fraggles.

You can dance and sing all day.

For the uninitiated, Fraggle Rock began life in 1983 as a wholly new Muppet-filled, live-action universe with a twist few of its viewers realized: it had different video segments in different regions. The humans on television in France, Germany, or the UK were different from the humans on television in the United States. All other Muppet voices were dubbed in different languages.

The oblivious human character Doc looked different depending on where you grew up. The premise of the series, about an underground world of furry, singing, radish-chomping creatures, was also the same everywhere. The show targeted a slightly older audience than Sesame Street, but never deviated into the rated-G-for-adults absurdity of The Muppet Show. It was similar to an '80s sitcom in that it featured a lot of hijinks and tidy resolutions, but with the addition of at least two song-and-dance sequences per episode.

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Traveling Uncle Matt is in need of a favor.

Uncle Matt wants a "boop." That's a good thing, because it's a good thing that there's a good thing that there's a good thing that there's a good thing that there's a good thing that there's a good thing that there's a good thing that there

Doozers stop working for a moment and then complain about how they've stopped working.

In an average day, working, singing, dancing, all in a day.

In 2020 Apple TV+ brought us a half-dozen episodes of Fraggle Rock: Rock On. The five-minute episodes were a good way for children to learn how to cope with a world-wide lockdown, even though the series underwhelmed. This week's new series is a full return to the past, with a massive underground lair built by tiny, beady-eyed characters known as Doozers.

The setup of the 13 episodes will sound familiar to series fans. Gobo was sent a new artifact from the world of the Silly People by Uncle Traveling Matt, and this discovery leads him and the rest of his friends to get up to some kind of adventure. The first episode of Back to the Rock has a surprise twist: Uncle Traveling Matt shows up for the first time at Fraggle Rock, and he has a special request that shakes up the rest of the cast.

While this leads to non sequiturs and good-spirited chaos, episodes usually end with a Fraggle having an idea about themselves or their furry friends. Revelations usually have a Full House-style piano. It's all good-natured stuff meant for the 10-and-up set, with a mix of adult-friendly gags and lyrics like Hip, hip, hooray, we're gonna dance and sing all day.

A five-point star of personality battles.

I groaned at some of the lyrics and dialogue in the first few episodes of the series because they were meant for little kids. Each episode's most kid-friendly content is always saccharine. The forebear of FR:BttR did it the same way. Gobo's plucky-yet-insecure urge to adventure, Red's exuberant-yet-impatient desire to pull off extreme tricks and Wembley's kind, trembling unease, are the five-point star of personality clashes amongst the Fraggles.