WATCH: Trailer for Season 2 of HBO's Looking

The first season of HBO's gay dramedy series Looking was uneven but I was generally pleased to hear it was renewed for a second season. The show is set in San Francisco and revolves around the lives and loves of four gay men, with the central character being played by openly gay actor Jonathan Groff. The trailer for the second season is now available.

Most of the actors playing the characters in Looking are gay (with the notable exception of  Raul Castillo's Richie, who is probably my favorite character). The acting is fine, my issues are with some of the writing, and primarily with the presence of one of the characters I think is just useless (Frankie J. Alvarez's Agustin).

Anyway, I'm looking forward to watching Looking until the 5th season of Game of Thrones begins to air!

Season 1 Finale of HBO's Looking Tonight

The first season of HBO's gay "dramedy" series Looking ends tonight when the 8th episode airs. The show has already been renewed for a second season and revolves around the loves and lives of three openly gay guys living in the San Francisco Bay Area. The lead character is played by openly gay actor Jonathan Groff and the central tension of the show is about whether his somewhat neurotic videogame programmer Patrick will choose Richie (Raul Castillo, who is straight in real life), a cute and very decent working class Latino barber with apparently little ambition, or Kevin (played by openly gay Russell Tovey), his handsome, British boss who has a longtime boyfriend and some palpable physical attraction towards Patrick. The series is co-created by Andrew Haigh (who directed Tovey in the sleeper gay hit film Weekend).

The other storylines involve the "co-lead" characters Dom (openly gay Australian actor Murray Bartlett), a just-turned-40 waiter who is starting to realize he needs to do something with his life before he can no longer get by on his good looks to hook up with twinks) and Augustin (Frankie J. Alvarez), an unlikable artistic type who is Patrick's college buddy and used to be his roommate until he moved out to Oakland to live with his very attractive (and Black) boyfriend early in the season.

The show is only 30 minutes long so I would prefer to see more of the Richie-Patrick-Kevin triangle as well as the potential courtship between Dom and older man Lynn (played by Scott Bakula).

Also ending its first season tonight is HBO's True Detective which stars newly minted Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as two detectives in a very atmospheric show about child murders and police misconduct in the Louisiana countryside and bayous. Apparently, neither Harrelson or McConaughey will appear in Season 2, so this may be the last time to see these two great actors facing off each other on "the little screen."

HBO Renews "Looking" For 2nd Season

The most high-profile gay series on television, HBO's Looking, has been renewed by the cable network for a second season despite relatively low viewership. The show is currently approaching the end of its first 8-episode season (didn't we used to call seasons this short miniseries?), with episode 6 (probably the best episode to date) airing last Sunday.

I like the show but it has some significant problems. It's what used to be called a "dramedy" (comedy-drama) in the vein of HBO's Girls but the characters in Looking are not as well-drawn as on Lena Dunham's show.

The show is set in San Francisco's predominantly gay scene.