HBO’s hospital comedy “Getting On” has never received the praise and attention it deserves from critics or audiences.
The workplace sitcom stars a trio of veteran comediennes at the top of their game: Alex Borstein (“Mad TV,” “Family Guy”), Laurie Metcalf (“Roseanne”), and Niecy Nash (“Reno 911”). They play the doctor (Metcalf) and nurses (Borstein and Nash) in the geriatric wing of a hospital — a place no one, including the patients, wants to be.
Poignant but never sentimental, “Getting On” is partly so powerful (and acutely sympathetic) because it’s about comfortably middle-aged women occupying different rungs of an office hierarchy, with all the social and interpersonal complications inherent to such circumstances. Overseeing a ward full of elderly women, Metcalf’s Dr. Jenna James and Nurses Dawn Forchette (Borstein) and DiDi Ortley (Nash) are people first and women second in this nearly single-gender environment. It’s a rare dynamic shared perhaps only by one other female-led show, Orange is the New Black.
And now it’ll get a third and final season to wrap up its storylines, in particular Dawn’s disastrous on-again-off-again relationship with one of her male co-workers (Mel Rodriguez) and Jenna’s flailing attempts to be seen as the ambitious researcher and administrator that she is. (Her bedside manner as a doctor, on the other hand, leave rather a lot to be desired.)
No premiere date has been announced, but the last two seasons have aired in the hectic period between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. Catch up on the first two brief and brilliant seasons via HBO Go.
READ NEXT: 5 Reasons to Watch HBO’s ‘Getting On’
[via AV Club]
