Most critics like Last Tango in Halifax, and they like it for the same reason: Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid. The praise clusters around the pair’s chemistry, described across the reviews as warm, quiet and grounded, and around Sally Wainwright’s dialogue, which several critics credit with making ordinary squabbles and everyday worries worth watching. The consensus is that the series is funny and bittersweet without tipping into sentimentality, and that the cast is doing careful work.
The reservations are modest and mostly about plotting. A couple of critics find the soap-like complications unearned, or feel they get in the way of the central couple; Variety finds the second run less buoyant than the first. The Guardian is only lightly engaged, though still won over by the leads. Paste’s complaint about the later run is that it is too short to develop its stories. The spread is narrow: nobody dislikes it, and the doubts are about construction rather than tone.