Getting On

I'm watching this series again and i still don't understand why this series did not continue - so funny and all characters are played by choice actors. I'm hoping for a reboot. My favorite character is still June Squibb as the crazy bi-polar patient Varla.

I rarely contribute reviews. I felt compelled to add to the (mere!) 11 reviews posted.

This show is such a gem. It is genuinely funny, the cast is spot-on stellar, and it has a a heartfelt center (without being sentimental). Niecy Nash is a stand-out. She steels many of her scenes. I only know Alex Borstein from MadTV and family guy; she surprises here with really great acting chops. Her dead-pan delivery takes the humor up a level. Laurie Metcald is a hoot as the neurotic doctor. Her characterization is eerily cemented in reality (unfortunately).

I can't recommend this enough. I hope it gets a strong following and continues for a few more seasons.

Just when I thought that HBO was beyond help, they finally get one right by largely leaving things alone. Having watched and thoroughly enjoyed many episodes of the British original with the wonderful Jo Brand ( one of the series creators and executive producers )in the lead role, I was very impressed by how much HBO has captured the spirit and quirkiness of this series. I think HBO has wisely kept the starkness of what the patient experience is, and perhaps given the show more room to fly by making it a teeny bit more gritty in terms of language and mature content. At first I was a little baffled by the American casting, but at only four episodes in they've done a great job of setting the stage without yet exhausting the overwhelming idiotic bureaucracy the staff alternately endure and wield like a weapon. So I'll give the show time to grow and capture the flip side - the patient interaction and the audience's need to connect with and root for the one mostly sane staffer.

Intelligent , insightful , character-driven comedy. Reno 911 veteran Neicy Nash plays a down-to-earth nurse who just started a new job at an elderly skilled nursing wing of a hospital. Alex Borstein (MadTV's "Mrs Swan") is brilliant as her romantically and professionally insecure mentor. And then there's Lori Metcalf, sinking her teeth into a juicy comic role deserving of her talents. She plays a high strung doctor who feels slighted at having to spend part of her work week assigned to the ward. On the bright side, it does give her access to many feces samples, which she collects obsessively, to be used in her ground-breaking poop-categorizing research study. The script is brilliant, chock full of outrageously funny lines that slip by if you don't pay close attention, but also smartly slowing down for a few moments of genuine emotion (Nash is especially nifty in these.) The laughs come so fast and frequent that you're not quite sure how serious to take the dramatic passages. But that tension is handled deftly, both in the writing and the performances. I've only seen the first two episodes, and I am counting the minutes til episode 3. This is going to be a fun ride.

I find myself identifying with the 'oldsters' in the show as much as anything. There are some genuine insights, both from the staff of the hospital dealing with the seniors and from the seniors themselves, looking out from the inside.

The show is well cast and the characters are becoming more developed as time passes; the seasons are short for this program and that limits the screen time the writers can devote to the characters, but even so they are becoming more real with each episode.

The writing is spare and deft. The jokes are subtle, rather than belabored; sometimes you have to think fast.

Dry and witty with the occasional belly laugh and some tender, wistful moments - I suppose it is a dark comedy, but semisweet rather than bitter. Give it a fair trial.