Submitted photoEmmy winner Jeff Daniels stars in the HBO drama “The Newsroom,” which starts its third and final season Sunday.

HBO launches three new series Sunday, including the long-awaited return of “The Newsroom” and the second season of little-seen dark comedy “Getting On.”

‘The Newsroom’

The final season of writer Aaron Sorkin’s ode to the potential for quality broadcast journalism finally arrives this weekend as “The Newsroom” prepares to say farewell. The series turned out to be an odd fit for HBO.

Unlike most HBO fare, “The Newsroom” received mixed-to-negative reviews and was mocked mercilessly by the same cultural critics who usually slobber over HBO series. What buzz the show has is largely negative due to tastemakers watching “The Newsroom” and mocking it on social media sites. And yet the reaction I heard from viewers was largely positive. In this age of antiheroes on dark cable dramas, the show’s appeal makes sense.

Unlike so many series about what we can broadly deem “bad people,” “The Newsroom” is filled with white hats, characters striving to do good. In Sunday’s episode, even bean counter Reese Lansing (Chris Messina, “The Mindy Project”) comes off as well-meaning.

And while these characters have their complications, the general tone of goodness could also understandably be cloying to some viewers. As a fan of “The West Wing,” I never found myself as drawn to Sorkin’s “The Newsroom,” probably due to my own cynicism about media, which may also account for the negative reactions from other TV critics who work in the media. The show was never entirely believable and the conceit of having episodes set during actual events — where the characters and/or viewer perceptions benefit from hindsight — felt like a cheat even though it could sometimes also be thought-provoking. The third-season premiere doesn’t shy away from this.

Set on the day of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, “The Newsroom” team immediately concludes the bombers are on the loose because there’s no suicide bomber’s body.

“They’re on the run,” says Charlie Skinner (Sam Waterston).

Not that the ACN team is covering the event live immediately. After getting tripped up by a story last season, caution rules the ACN newsroom.

“We’re not going (live) based on tweets from witnesses we can’t talk to,” executive producer Mac (Emily Mortimer) says. “What credible news organization would do that?”

“Fox is up!” someone in the newsroom shouts, a cheap if warranted dig.

In addition to the major news story of the day, “The Newsroom” also allows time for its continuing character relationships stories to evolve — Mac and “News Night” anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) plan their wedding, which plays right into Will’s curmudgeon tendencies — and Neal (Dev Patel) accidentally commits a felony that will fuel stories in future episodes.

Ending after just three seasons, “The Newsroom” cannot be considered a hit by HBO standards. But despite its missteps and frequent crucifixion on social media, the series offered receptive viewers something that’s lacking and needed in today’s media environment: optimism and hope.

‘Getting On’

There’s little optimism or hope in season two of the bleak, dark comedy “Getting On,” which returns for its second season at 10:40 p.m. Sunday following the return of “The Comeback.”

“Getting On” debuted last fall with almost no publicity, something HBO executives now admit was a mistake.

“Sometimes we’re challenged by the notion of Sunday night, which is big, and it’s not that kind of show,” said HBO programming president Michael Lombardo following a July HBO press conference. “The moments are quiet and comic and catch you and make you giggle, but honestly I think it was too soft a launch. At some point I looked at what the awareness was among HBO subscribers and it was somewhere under 5 percent.”

That lack of publicity made it appear HBO executives disliked “Getting On” and were just burning it off, but instead, it’s back for another six episodes despite predictably low ratings its first season.

“Getting On” once again follows the nurses and doctors of a Long Beach, California, hospital, including practical nurse Didi (Niecy Nash), desperate nurse Dawn (Alex Borstein) and brittle Dr. Jenna James (Laurie Metcalf), who wants to be a research superstar but finds herself languishing in a ward with patients who are “getting on” in years.

Much of the humor still stems from the filthy-mouthed elderly patients — “You smell especially rancid today,” one patient tells Dr. James — but there’s also some good physical comedy (an adjustable bed scene plays like something out of “I Love Lucy”) and a lot of dark humor rooted in the pathetic personalities of the characters.