As for the portrayal of the main characters the distinction between snarky and mean is a thin one. I'm not talking about cruel that's a big leap. But I still find Kermit in the wheelhouse of his previous self. Miss Piggy for me is a more problematic character. She is a character of wild extremes and it is through these extremes we can then settle on the nice middle ground. She can be selfish (she left Kermit on their date in The Muppet Movie). She can be insecure (She paid off the audience in the Dom DeLuise episode). I don't think either of these are necessarily bad traits. When push comes to shove I bet Piggy would pick Kermit and being a big star in a small pond (no pun intended) over being a major Hollywood star. However, she wants both and therefore needs to sometimes sacrifice one for the other. I think writing for Miss Piggy is one of the toughest assignments in the world. She has two very strong objectives and sometimes they mesh and sometimes they conflict. Jerry Juhl knew that exact spot where they meet. In my mind it's almost unfair to ask other writers to duplicate.
That is the one downside I have with the show now, is that it seems they're going out of their way to make Piggy even more selfish, petty, insecure, etc. That's who she is, BUT - as I think I posted earlier, somewhere - it does take something pretty big to get her to show her heart of gold, especially with the others.
A great example is the look on her face when Kermit breaks up with her. Her hate of Elizabeth Banks isn't because of Elizabeth Banks, but the fact that they were standing outside of her poster when they broke up.
Even in the Muppet Show, it took something big (like the rats using Beauregard) before we got to see that, "hey. she's not a complete psychopath. She's just a jerk with the heart of Gold"
Fozzie losing his mental compass. I am not exactly sure what you mean - is it his taking the candy dish? I think Fozzie is insecure enough to want to have a piece of physical evidence to show Gonzo, Rizzo et al. that he was at Jay Leno's. Later he realizes what he did was wrong and planned to return it. I was not happy with the repeat with him taking the rooster figure. So a better resolution there was needed.
Fozzie stealing a candy dish wasn't that big of a deal to me; it was the way Jay Leno flipped his **** over it, especially when he stole it first. Fozzie would totally take something to 1. show he was at Jay Leno's house and 2. show that he was at Jay Leno's house. He got a ribbing from Gonzo for it, so of course he'd take it and be like "How ya like me now!?"
But he did feel bad about it, especially when everyone alluded that it was in fact stealing and he was taking it back (until he broke it).
Like I said, it's only been three episodes. Netflix recently put out a report on when people start getting into a show and very few of them had the pilot listed; I think only two had the second episode as hooking people, but others (like OUAT), it took 6 episodes before people really got into the show.
I'll totally agree that for the moment, it's still a little off balance in that while the A plot is normally great, not enough time is given to the B/C plots, especially in some cases where these would be really good, if they didn't have to share with two other plots. My roommate mentioned that Seinfeld was a master at this, having several plots that ended up coming together at the end.
Modern Family I think is the best current example, which borrows from the above in that usually the three family plots come together at some point in the episode. I'd kinda like to see that, which I think would help out some; of course TMS did this as well and I think it worked when the plots converged on each other, even if the main plot was better than the subplot.