With its strong performances, subtle details and believable situations, Looking presents a convincing portrayal of everyday life--either gay or straight.

Patrick is the only one of the three leads to come entirely into focus over these early episodes.... But there's some excellent raw material in here, even if at times I found myself admiring Looking more than I was liking it.

There's nothing formally or dramatically groundbreaking about it, except for its "no big deal" attitude. But that in itself is striking. It should be counted as progress. That Looking doesn't seem to be terribly concerned with words like progress should count as progress, too.

There's a nice balance of humor (Groff in particular gets to milk the comedy) and emotional drama coursing through it (like Girls, which makes a fine pair for it on Sundays).

I don't know that Looking starts out being very good at what it thinks it is, either. But it's intriguing enough to be worth a second or third date before deciding.

Looking occupies some fuzzy ill-defined middle ground filled with uni-dimensional characters.

Looking isn’t just disappointing, it’s infuriating. Looking offers one hopelessly out-of-date idea about gay life after another.... All of that said, Looking is still a unique moment in gay television.

The first few episodes feel like not much is happening. Once you get past episode 3 it gets really interesting and riveting. Can't wait for season 2.

Quite real and moving gay daily life. San Francisco makes me wanna immigrate to the US. I really like Patrick because he is not handsome. And Andrew Haigh is a genius, definitely.

Doesn't deliver. Boring,pointless,hollow. The characters are totally unlikeable and uninteresting.I mean-I'm gay man myself and I wouldn't spend 5 minutes of my real life on pathetic creatures like these so why would I ever watch show about them?Looking for **** would be more appropriate title.

This show is looking for some good writing, editing, and direction. The characters are completely dull and uni-dimensional, and after each episode I'm left feeling like 30 minutes passed and I was sitting in front of a screen with nothing but static and disparate Instagram photos of San Francisco with no apparent thematic relation or overall story line. I get that the protagonist is flawed and has issues, but a skillful writer can take that concept and make it so the character isn't flat out annoying. The supporting protagonists are mere interlopers to the show as a whole, showing up just when you want to flip all the tables at every coffee shop in the mission because the main character is so annoying. After watching every episode of the first season I feel like I know nothing more about these people or their environment than I did when the first episode aired. Basically, there's no story at least not one that is interesting. The editing and direction need serious help too. There are pregnant pauses and long overwrought sighs in the dialogue that are wasted moments for character development. Not to mention the long looks at computer screens for OKCupid or Grindr. I found myself adding my own dialogue in these moments and then questioned why I am even paying HBO for this show when I'm clearly doing a much better job of entertaining myself. There are out of place scenes that don't offer much and there are times when I felt like the director didn't even show up to the filming and the actors were winging it. In the end this show is nothing but a concept, that being "Gay men. 2014. San Francisco." From the end product it looks like there was little or no thought past that. There needs to be something more than that, let us know where these people are from, what brought them to San Francisco, where do they want to go, how do they know each other? I will say this, my favorite part of the entire first season was the last 2 minutes of the last episode...where you are watching two of the protagonists watch the Golden Girls, a show with all of the attributes that Looking is looking for.

The series covers gay topics that are relevant, however the lack of direction is alarming... Also the editing is atrocious with very choppy scene changes and awkward stops. Cinematography is very dusky and gives a general depressed feeling to the show. There is a general lack of character development in the first few episodes that would help establish rapport with different tribes of the gay community. The show lacks punch in really hitting home the themes it wants to establish, is it the growing geek/gaymer community, the bear community, the multi racial theme. Not that we want sex to drive every show, but it needs a bit of spit and polish to make this show shine. Youtube has better home made shows that would be a better use of bandwidth.