Open Sesame

The series is “more essential than ever,” Alan Sepinwall said at Rolling Stone . At a historical moment when “we have grown increasingly tribal and isolate d from one another,” the ethos of “Sesame Street” is that people different backgrounds “can be best pals despite disagreeing on almost everything.”

It is “awfully troubling” that the show’s future is now in doubt, but it is still such a big brand that it is easy to “imagine Apple or another streamer stepping in to rescue Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch and friends,” Sepinwall said. A television landscape without “Sesame Street” would be “much emptier and sadder.”

What next?

The show is being “reimagined” for the future, said The Hollywood Reporter . A 56th season — if it happens — will feature a shift away from the show’s current “magazine” format of multiple short segments in favor of “two longer, more narrative-driven segments.”

Children have changed, say the show’s producers, which means “Sesame Street” must also change. Kim Wilson Stallings, executive vice president of Sesame Workshop, said the creators of “Sesame Street” always imagined it “like an experiment.”