"the not-too-late show with elmo" received positive reviews. review aggregator rotten tomatoes gave the first season of the show an 81% "fresh" rating based on 16 reviews with an average rating of 7/10. the critical consensus is: "with great guests, fun games, and a lot of silly songs, "the not-too-late show with elmo" is a fitting bedtime show for tots that parents may even enjoy as well". metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100, assigned a rating score of 70 based on 8 critic reviews, meaning favorable reviews for the first season.