Apple TV+ review: Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock
Review Overview
Fraggles
9Doozers
9Gorgs
9Brendon Connelly | On 13, Feb 2022
Perhaps surprisingly, Jim Henson not only created the TV classics The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock, but he also decided just when it was time for them to stop. Neither show was cancelled by their broadcasters, but instead brought to a rest by Henson when he wanted to move his focus onto something new.
Both, of course, have had long legacies, but where Disney seem at least as confused by The Muppets as they are keen to employ them in attracting audiences, The Jim Henson Company has had much more consistent success with their resurrections, including both Fraggle Rock and The Dark Crystal. Whatever else, there’s no way their zippy new Fraggle Rock do-over, Back to the Rock, is an embarrassment to the original. But is it also redundant? Might Jim Henson have been right in thinking Fraggle Rock was already complete?
It’s not entirely clear if this new show is a sequel or some kind of remake, for whatever that distinction is worth. Fairly obviously, the original show was set in the 1980s and the new one is set in the 2020s, but it’s hard to pin down, for sure, if the events of the first series are history in the world of the second or not. Is the character of Sprocket the dog the same one, somehow happily decades old, or is this a new dog with the same name? Or perhaps a new ‘telling’ of the same character, being introduced to us afresh? It doesn’t really matter, of course, and it’s even true that most episodes will stand up entirely independently no matter what order you watch them in – even if you skip back and forth between the 80s and 20s series.
Having said this, the first episode of Return to the Rock does a brilliant job of setting out the stall, pulling the typical pilot strings of explaining who everybody is, what they’re up to – particularly salient in the case of Gobo Fraggle’s Uncle Travelling Matt, who leaves Fraggle Rock for (another) journey into the world of human “silly creatures” – and how these pieces all fit together. This last point is very much a key concern, with the interrelated, holistic ecology of Fraggle Rock being a big part of the show’s point. The industrious, miniature Doozers, we are reminded, harvest radishes and use them to build crystalline structures that Fraggles then eat. Tucked away in the rock’s network of tunnels is an inside-out garden where the ogre-like Gorgs live, and where Fraggles are seen as pests, or even potential snacks. Also in this garden is Marjory the sagacious trash heap, who exists as a by-product of Gorg waste and who supports the rodent double act Philo and Gunge.
As well as carrying over the internal logic of Fraggle Rock, the new show also restores its scintillating, beautiful surface in all its gem-coloured glory. Now in lush HD and widescreen, and with a far more agile camera, the showmakers can do all kinds of aesthetic things that their 80s counterparts could not. You’re likely to notice a lot more Fraggle legs in the new episodes too.
The cast are back, at least in Muppet form. Some of their special assistants have been changed – Gobo’s close personal friend, Jerry Nelson, is very much missed, of course, as are Steve Whitmire and Kathryn Mullen’s contributions to Wembley and Mokey, even while John Tartaglia, Jordan Lockhart and Donna Kimball have stepped up to lend a strong hand and bright heart to these Fraggles. Dave Goelz and Karen Prell have reprised their duties for Uncle Matt, Boober and Red, although Goelz takes part in voice only. For a longstanding Muppet lover, Goelz and Prell’s return to these roles is truly one of the most warming and welcome parts of the whole enterprise
The way they’re all empathetically portrayed, it’s really rather impossible to not love Fraggles, or Doozers, even the would-be regal Gorgs. Heck, this show has left this writer a little bit in love with a festering pile of rotting compost and the two fuzzy things that live in her. This whole world of characters was boldly conceived and richly detailed, and continues to be charmingly realised. You might even like Mokey’s new look more than the old one – it certainly translates better to today’s context.
But the question remains: why head back to Fraggle Rock at all, instead of simply making the original episodes widely and easily available? One real answer, of course, is that there’s cashflow at stake. Apple wants to attract subscribers, the Jim Henson Company wants to keep the lights on – and, one hopes, fund continued development of other things – and the new Fraggle Rock surely works for the market in a way that the old one wouldn’t.
But whatever the reason, this return expedition yields impressive results. Perhaps the original 1980s scripts were a little bit stranger, a little bit funnier, and a little less clunky, but the distinction is a narrow one, and the new screenplays are satisfyingly ambitious and dense. The irreplaceable Jerry Juhl is sadly no longer with us, although Jocelyn Stevenson, who was instrumental to the creation of the original show, is a key part of the writing team here and takes full credit for one episode – while, I’d wager, having a hand in several.
Stevenson’s episode is a good example of how Back to the Rock is just as determined to be relevant and meaningful as the original show was. In that third instalment – shortly after a character meaningfully declares “Facts are important!” – Mokey Fraggle finds herself ignoring all reason to head off into a literal echo chamber where the talking rock walls parrot back to her exactly what she already believes.
Fraggle Rock stories have always been fables, if not parables, and they’re typically rich in messages about tolerance, co-operation and other good, moral sense. Jim Henson famously declared an ambition that the original, very internationally minded show might even foster global interconnectedness and play some part in ending wars.
And while you won’t be able to miss the carry-through of such lofty ideals in the new series, the original’s unique, international nature has been scrapped outright. Different countries had their own edits of the original 80s episodes, complete with unique characters and localised settings. It’s a little disappointing, with a faint tinge of ickiness, that the new show has an entirely American setting (albeit filmed in Canada with a large number of Canadian creatives behind the scenes). It feels like a small betrayal that Fraggle Rock stood against this kind of cultural blanketing but Back to the Rock does not. And why not? It can only be a creative or financial decision because there’s nothing technical in the way of Apple providing different video streams in different counties or regions.
All around, however, Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock works beautifully as a new delivery of more Fraggle Rock, and that’s reason enough to recommend it. One of TV’s great jewels is back, bigger and brighter than ever, and barely showing even a hint of tarnish. Hooray!