Most critics welcome How to Get to Heaven from Belfast as a witty mystery-comedy whose strongest asset is the friendship at its centre. Praise clusters around Lisa McGee’s dry Northern Irish humour, the central trio’s lived-in chemistry and the cast’s handling of silliness alongside more adult concerns. The Guardian singles out Saoirse-Monica Jackson’s performance, while several reviews find emotional weight in the friendships rather than just comic relief.
Reservations concern the machinery surrounding those relationships: dual timelines, elaborate intrigue, uneven pacing and outlandish situations that do not always land. The spread is wide despite the broadly positive consensus. Paste finds an entertaining but overcomplicated series that falls short of Derry Girls’ comic assurance; NME is more firmly opposed, judging the plotting derivative and the shifts in tone unconvincing. The main divide is over whether the mystery sustains the comedy or gets in its way.