| Season Number: | 1 |
| Bgcolour: |
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| Image Upright: | 1.25 |
| Network: | HBO |
| Num Episodes: | 10 |
| Episode List: | List of Girls episodes |
The first season of the American comedy-drama television series Girls premiered on HBO on April 15, 2012, and consisted on 10 episodes, concluding on June 17, 2012. The series was created by Lena Dunham, who portrays the lead character, who based the premise and central aspects of the show on her personal life. It was produced by Apatow Productions, I Am Jenni Konnor Productions and HBO productions.
The season introduces Dunham's character Hannah Horvath, an immature aspiring writer from East Lansing, Michigan who is in for a surprise when she is informed by her parents that they will no longer support her financially. Having received their support for two years, following her graduation from Oberlin College, Hannah struggles with her newly established independence as she is left to her own devices in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Within Hannah's circle of friends they include Marnie Michaels (Allison Williams), Jessa Johansson (Jemima Kirke) and Shoshanna Shapiro (Zosia Mamet).
The first season of Girls received universal acclaim from television critics. On the review aggregator website Metacritic, the first season of the series holds an average of 87 based on 29 reviews.[1] The website also lists the show as the highest-rated fictional series debut of 2012. James Poniewozik from Time reserved high praise for the series, calling it "raw, audacious, nuanced and richly, often excruciatingly funny".[2] Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter called Girls "one of the most original, spot-on, no-missed-steps series in recent memory". Reviewing the first three episodes at the 2012 SXSW Festival, he said the series conveys "real female friendships, the angst of emerging adulthood, nuanced relationships, sexuality, self-esteem, body image, intimacy in a tech-savvy world that promotes distance, the bloodlust of surviving New York on very little money and the modern parenting of entitled children, among many other things—all laced together with humor and poignancy".[3] The New York Times also applauded the series and said: "Girls may be the millennial generation's rebuttal to Sex and the City, but the first season was at times as cruelly insightful and bleakly funny as Louie on FX or Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO."[4]
| Episode | U.S viewers | UK viewers[5] | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | 872,000 | 181,000 | |
| 1.2 | 858,000 | 114,000 | |
| 1.3 | 816,000 | 132,000 | |
| 1.4 | 743,000 | 149,000 | |
| 1.5 | 830,000 | 137,000 | |
| 1.6 | 678,000 | 141,000 | |
| 1.7 | 868,000 | 160,000 | |
| 1.8 | 1,090,000 | 101,000 | |
| 1.9 | 866,000 | 123,000 | |
| 1.10 | 1,004,000 | 119,000 |