Getting On (2013)
HBO | Release Date: November 24, 2013
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
77
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
3
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Entertainment WeeklyMelissa MaerzNov 7, 2014
Season 2 Review: If the hospital staff is desensitized to basic human dignity, the show makes sure its audience never is. [14/21 Nov 2014, p.100] Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleDavid WiegandNov 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: There is a brilliant mix of poignancy and hilarity in Getting On, which is why it all works so well. Read full review
100
NewsdayVerne GayNov 21, 2013
Season 1 Review: Its tender moments register without feeling forced while the comedy comes in the form of a constant IV drip. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubBrandon NowalkNov 6, 2015
Season 3 Review: Naturally it prepares for its own end like a pro, not with sound and fury but with moments and gestures that recommit to the show’s belief in the dignity and absurdity of life, made all the more poignant by the knowledge that this is the end. The gravity of death and the parade of life combine to give Getting On an uncommon mood. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyMelissa MaerzOct 30, 2015
Season 3 Review: In its third and final season, the series is still brilliantly droll, elevating the most mundane moments into something that’s either hilariously awkward or genuinely moving--or, at its best, both. Read full review
90
Washington PostHank StueverNov 6, 2015
Season 3 Review: The first four episodes of this new season are among the series’ best.... Network trauma dramas come and go--and with them a lot of serious doctors and nurses and miserable patients--but rarely do we see a show that understands life in a hospital as well as Getting On did. Read full review
90
Denver PostJoanne OstrowNov 7, 2014
Season 2 Review: The best comedy you're not watching.... Laurie Metcalf ("Roseanne"), Alex Borstein ("Family Guy") and Niecy Nash ("Reno 911") simply kill it as an ensemble, doing justice to the sharp writing of Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesMary McNamaraNov 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: It's a dark and astonishing gem of a show, with a bravely skillful cast juggling the petty obsessions of the workplace with Much Bigger Issues. Read full review
90
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenNov 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: There is some pathos in Getting On with regard to the elderly patients, but that's seamlessly interwoven in the darkly funny personal stories of the hospital staff. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayNov 7, 2014
Season 2 Review: Getting On comes back in a mode so low-key that the show feels inconsequential, setting up a season of diminishing returns. But by the third episode, things really start to click again. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubEmily VanDerWerffNov 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: Getting On captures the drudgery of work and life in this ward, but it also catches glimpses of the beauty, and it’s in those moments that it feels like a series that deserves better than it’s going to get. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyMelissa MaerzNov 20, 2013
Season 1 Review: Getting On is much funnier than its premise suggests. [22 Nov 2013, p.62] Read full review
80
The New YorkerEmily NussbaumNov 16, 2015
Season 3 Review: The first four episodes of this season, though skillfully directed by Miguel Arteta, vary in effectiveness, but the third is pretty perfect, particularly Rhea Perlman’s performance as a double-amputee convict determined to escape from her hospital bed. Read full review
80
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerNov 6, 2015
Season 3 Review: In any given episode, all three of these actresses may be called upon for slapstick comedy (for Ms. Metcalf, in the season premiere, there’s an outlandish scene in a bathroom stall), deadpan humor and actual pathos, since their patients are often frail, facing dementia or outright dying. And they deliver with nuanced performances that turn quick glances or sighs into punch lines. Read full review
80
Sioux City JournalBruce MillerNov 2, 2015
Season 3 Review: While Getting On might seem confining--and hardly funny--it’s one of the best workplace comedies on television. Like both versions of “The Office,” it embraces stray looks, asides and slyly funny commentary. Read full review
80
Sioux City JournalBruce MillerNov 20, 2014
Season 2 Review: It slips into a world you probably never knew (or cared about) and finds a way to make you utterly invested. Read full review
80
Washington PostHank StueverNov 7, 2014
Season 2 Review: All the reasons viewers first loved Getting On are here again. Read full review
80
Sioux City JournalBruce MillerNov 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: In a sea of formulaic comedies, this stands out as a lifeboat worth clinging to. Read full review
80
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerNov 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: Every so often a staff member, usually DiDi, is shown in a quiet moment with a patient, providing actual care. These small scenes end up being surprisingly moving because this fictional hospital unit, in all its ridiculousness, feels somehow true to life. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalNancy DeWolf SmithNov 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: That these actors can make us care about their characters, or at least feel their pain so acutely, is what elevates Getting On above the miasma of its material. Read full review
80
SlateWilla PaskinNov 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: It’s almost as impossible to believe, without seeing it, that such a show could be both very funny and occasionally uplifting without ever resorting to cheap sentimentality. But it is. Read full review
80
Washington PostHank StueverNov 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: Weirdly enough, Getting On (adapted from the original BBC series) is a witheringly efficient work of satire, easily confident about the humanity and absurdity it’s trying to portray. Read full review
80
Denver PostJoanne OstrowNov 20, 2013
Season 1 Review: [The characters] are sympathetic even when unlovable. The dialogue and physical gross-out moments are equally frank. And hilarious. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineElise NakhnikianNov 7, 2014
Season 2 Review: This is farce with a heart, shot through with unlikely moments of grace and warmed by an aura of bemused acceptance. Read full review
75
People WeeklyTom GliattoNov 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: Flawlessly done, but a tough sell. [2 Dec 2013, p.50]
75
Boston HeraldMark A. PerigardNov 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: This bleak depiction of hospital work locates the show about two degrees south of “St. Elsewhere.” And yet, after I finished the first three episodes, I realized I was hooked; I wanted more. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesLori RacklNov 21, 2013
Season 1 Review: Get ready to laugh and cry with this touching new comedy about a dysfunctional team of nurses and doctors caring for aging patients in a hospital’s extended-care wing. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchGail PenningtonNov 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: Getting On is for mature audiences only, with uncensored language and outrageous behavior all around. If you like comedy with more cringes than chuckles, Getting On could be for you. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineMike LechevallierNov 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: Adapted from the British series of the same name, Getting On is billed as a comedy, but the show's setting, a neglected geriatric rehabilitation ward, is such an overwhelmingly depressing environment that much of the offbeat humor ends up flatlining. Read full review
50
USA TodayRobert BiancoNov 21, 2013
Season 1 Review: To be fair, this otherwise languid show does momentarily come to life in its second episode, when Nebraska's June Squibb tears through the unit as a particularly nasty patient. But she leaves and the show recedes into its self-satisfied torpor. Read full review
40
VarietyBrian LowryNov 21, 2013
Season 1 Review: While one might charitably chalk it up to a slightly British sensibility, like too many of pay cable’s current batch of half-hours, whatever humor graces these hallways is so dry it’s questionable whether “comedy” is the proper classification. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterTim GoodmanNov 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: Getting On is mostly a depressing and unfunny (which is more depressing) look at an eldercare facility, the people winding down their days ignominiously in said facility and a handful of people who work there. Read full review
30
TV Guide MagazineMatt RoushNov 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: The pilot episode involves an endless debate over a mysterious "fecal deposit" left on a chair. Let that be a metaphor. Read full review
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