Starting from January 2014, Groff starred as Patrick Murray, a gay video game developer, in HBO's comedy-drama series "Looking", created by Michael Lannan. The series depicted a group of gay friends navigating relationships in San Francisco and was praised for its representation of LGBTQ+ characters and experiences, although common criticism was a slightly boring and disjointed plot. The series received two seasons but was cancelled by HBO on March 23, 2015, with the network green-lighting a television film to conclude the story. The film premiered on HBO on July 23, 2016. Groff's performance was well received by critics, with one critic from "The New York Times" calling Groff's performance "excellent [...] Mr. Groff always made his tics, inconsistencies and operatically scaled mistakes believable."