New on TV: November 2015

Please Like Me (2015) ✭✭✭✭½

Pivot, Hulu

From the show's website:  After breaking up with his girlfriend, Josh comes to the realization that he is homosexual. With the support of his now ex girlfriend Claire, and his best friend and house mate Tom, Josh must help his mother with her battle with depression and the rest of his family embrace his new found lifestyle.

This wonderful Australian comedy is the brainchild of writer/director/star Josh Thomas, with the able support of a delightful array of goofballs, slackers and mental patients. It's showing in the U.S. on Pivot, an obscure cable channel that I fortunately get, and it's streaming on HULU. Thomas conducts the show in a relaxed, mumblecore style, creating an eccentric world that also feels very, very real. Go watch it. Right now.

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Supergirl (2015) ✭✭½

CBS

From the show's website:  SUPERGIRL is an action-adventure drama based on the DC Comics character Kara Zor-El, Superman’s (Kal-El) cousin who, after 12 years of keeping her powers a secret on Earth, decides to finally embrace her superhuman abilities and be the hero she was always meant to be.

The previews looked terrific so I had high hopes for this show. But after a couple of episodes, it's clear Supergirl is more of the same ol' superhero fare we've been getting lately: violent, stupid and without any respect for the comic book legend that spawned it. Melissa Benoist deserves better.

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Getting On (2015) ✭✭✭✭✭

HBO

From the show's website:  At the Billy Barnes Extended Care Unit of Mt. Palms Hospital in Long Beach, Cal., the staff attends to the needs of female patients who are often “getting on” in years, while dealing with the challenges of a health-care bureaucracy in need of an overhaul.

The neurotic doctors and nurses of America's funniest hospice unit are back for a third season and they've lost none of their deadpan bedpan hilarity. This show has some of the best comedic talents in the business, led by Laurie Metcalf, who was so funny in the season premier I thought I would faint from laughing too hard.