Mike Judge is best known as the man behind the cult series Beavis and Butt-head and cult movie Office Space. Lately, he has possibly fallen by the wayside a bit, but still directed the ingenious comedies like Idiocracy and Extract. Now, he is back with HBO series Silicon Valley.
The title says it all. The series takes advantage of the recent years’ fascination with the IT industry and geek culture in the United States. The poster is a pastiche of Steve Jobs, the protagonist a neurotic and special programmers in style with Jesse Eisenberg’s interpretation of Mark Zuckerberg in Social Network, and his circle of friends is like taken from a slightly more serious version of The Big Bang Theory.
Despite the obvious influences feels Silicon Valley Fresh. As so often in the HBO productions find a good balance between humour and seriousness. Just because it is a comedy, it does not mean that the main characters have to be stereotypes straight through. I hope that this trend will continue in the coming seasons.
This is really promising. The story of how Richard (Thomas Middleditch) together with the self-appointed PR genius Erlich (comedian T.J. Miller) start their own have both the drive, humour and warmth. Richard manages to something random to create a revolutionary way to compress files, which sets the ball rolling. With promises to become the new super the contractors shits in the tender offer from large enterprise and run on themselves. A classic underdog story really, but it works well, and the environments are exciting and credible.
In other roles excels Zach Woods (Jared) from The Office. His character has an extreme need for control and sense of control, leading to several of the show’s funniest situations. Additionally fun to see Martin Starr (Gilfoyle) from Freaks and Geeks again, even though he most may act comic relief.
Sometimes, perhaps Silicon Valley a tad FRIVOLOUS, and sometimes you afraid to talk about “nerds revenge” to take over. But it will never be real. The series manages to be like a mix between right Social Network and the Big Bang Theory. Occasionally FRIVOLOUS, moderately geeky and moderately seriously. The eight sections goes way too fast, and after a season finale that’s really exciting, I’m really looking forward to season two.
If you have a few nights free it’s worth watching. The Pod Food and Xmarx crew got together for most of the series. There was the few nights with Tony from VIZOO.
9 out of 10 bananas. 8 episodes – 2 disc DVD box set. Silicon Valley Season 2 set to air on April 12, 2015. Silicon Valley Season 1 is available: $34.98 at JB Hifi.
Also found online – Friends dvd box set, 10 Seasons – $162 at JB Hifi.
*Prices as of time of post.
Max Shindler
Movie enthusiast, editor and copywriter for Xmarx
