Loved it. Genuinely.
Actually went down to the BFI last week to see Brian Froud talking about making it.
Initially I balked at a 10 episode series, but all in all I think it actually justifies that as a narrative.
It builds parts of a pre-history of the world from a safe distance before the original movie, whilst absolutely feeling in-keeping with its aesthetic. And it does that by the incredible undertaking of avoiding cheaper CGI renditions and building an proper puppet production. Costuming, props, sets all built for real. The kind of thing which these days only Netflix money can buy.
Yes, CGI is used for backgrounds, and for removing traces of puppeteers, sticks, strings and the like. It gets used for touching up things making puppets blink in shots where it wouldn't be possible for the puppeteer to do that easily whilst doing so many other things. But the whole thing feels very natural. I rarely feels like it breaks a sense of immersion.
I've always maintained that while CGI can do a great many things well the one area they will always fail in is producing a true sense of *weight* of an object on-screen. The way a creature or hovering craft hangs or sways, for example. And what effect that motion has on a landscape around it. CG can make it look like it's there, but it always looks like a cheap superimposing of an image.
As a child of the late 70s and early 80s I was genuinely psyched to see a show like this being made today. And also to see some kind of continuance in that type of fantasy which Henson and Froud built so well through the original Dark Crystal, through Labyrinth and The Storyteller. Since Henson's death there's been too little of that (Farscape being a notable exception, but even then it rarely used something on this scale of creatures).
I'm not going to say it's perfect (and it really does seem like a first Act in a larger story) but this could so easily have been something truly terrible. And it's such a genuine surprise that it's been done so delightfully faithfully instead.