For today's edition of my ongoing series about recommendable TV shows, I'd like to present a series that I breezed through in a matter of no time, making it seem like a glimpse of memory, even though it had full six seasons with a total of 53 (albeit 25 minute) episodes. The reason for such passionate binge-watching was not the deep philosophical or sociopolitical concepts analyzed in the show, nor was it the breathtaking suspense or intricate story-line ... none of that can be said about this series. It was simply the fact that I got to laugh... A LOT! And that alone is worth the mention.
Which show am I talking about? None other than Silicon Valley, the series created by Mike Judge (et al.), writer and director of the much quoted 1999 film Office Space. The series was shown on HBO between 2014 and 2019, and just like Office Space, deals with the life and work of people in the software industry. Unlike Office Space, however, Silicon Valley takes us right into the core of tech giants, and developers on the cutting edge of the latest apps that will potentially disrupt the entire market. Most importantly, this brilliant show is brim full of ironical jokes, placed perfectly into a highly satirical backdrop.
Of Quirky Nerds and Greedy Investor Types
Somewhere in the urban sprawl between Los Angeles and San Francisco, around Stanford University in Palo Alto, is the place where such companies as Google, Apple, Facebook, and YouTube have grown into the multi-million companies they are. Trying to make use this fertile ground of dynamic software development, many programmers dream of coming out with the next game-changing app. At the same time, venture capitalists are keen on finding these coders... or rather their revolutionary projects, and raise them to become the next tech giant, or else maybe sell the project to those giants. Whichever deems to be more profitable.
In this world of high stakes and ever faster change, the show introduces its protagonists, a group of nerdy coders who are all brilliant in their way, but are still far from their big breakthrough. They live in a house run by their landlord as a "business incubator", in exchange for 10% of whatever software project they manage to sell. When one of the resident nerds finally reaches the verge of this point, the entire household is swept up in a frenzy for money and tech-solutions.
Stereotypes are Fully Exploited or Completely Turned Upside-Down
One thing I should probably mention whenever discussing comedy, is that I tend to have a weird sense of humor. Lots of shows that are commonly considered hilarious tend to leave me cold. I understand what's supposed to be funny, it just doesn't manage to make me laugh. For some reason, Silicon Valley had the opposite effect. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's because this show takes huge swings between the extremely predictable and the completely unassuming. Admittedly, the first few episodes struck me as "yet another geeky recycling of Big Bang Theory awkwardness". However, Silicon Valley has a way of sneaking up on you, before boo-ya-ing you in the face with the exact opposite of what you were expecting. -- Ohhh, now I almost included spoilers here!
And it's not just the nerds who carry all the jokes. The business characters are just as much prone to stereotypes and eccentricities. And in Silicon Valley we can meet all of them: the one-hit-wonder billionaire with annoyingly lavish lifestyle, the aspiring MBA-geek with all the skills and none of the contacts, and the super-successful Gates-Musk-type, who's weirder than the rest of them all combined.
My favorite take on stereotypes is the main antagonist's observation of the coders: "It's weird. They always travel in groups of five. These programmers, there's always a tall skinny white guy, a short skinny Asian guy, fat guy with a ponytail, some guy with crazy facial hair and then an East Indian guy. It's like they trade guys until they all have the right group." source
Not Very Old (Yet), Still A Bit Dated
Due to its cutting-edge subject matter, Silicon Valley has the potential to become a thing of the past very quickly. This is already becoming evident, as a lot has happened in the last seven years. Money and software... shouldn't that at least suggest crypto on some level? Well, the series does mention Bitcoin, but only in passing, and without much relevance. At this point I should mention the series StartUp, recommended by @riverflows in her post about TV-shows, which has been released a bit later, and focuses more on cryptos. Thanks for the suggestion, that will be next series I'll binge on.
But even despite it aging so rapidly, Silicon Valley is still recommendable. And, once again thanks to our quickly changing world of tech, it's possible that with time it may take on traits of a cult classic. After all, in spite of fax machines and floppy disks, Office Space remains ever so watchable, not only for nostalgic reasons. If you've become interested in a humorous take on the software industry, and an unusual way to play with nerdy stereotypes, you may want to look at a trailer of Silicon Valley:
Take a Look at the Previous Posts in my Binge On This Series:
Dark: Intense Time-Travel for Germanophiles
Twin Peaks: The Show That Changed Everything
The Man In the High Castle: What if the Nazis Had Won?
Lost: Mystery With Addictive Potential
Babylon Berlin: Sociopolitical Tremmors in the Weimar Republic
Rome: A Realistic Sandal Series
Carnivàle: A Throw-back to the Thirties
Weeds: The Hillarious Alternative to Breaking Bad
Mr. Robot: Hackers, Freedom, and Mental Issues
Das Boot: A Real German WWII Series
Black Sails: Pirate Lore Galore
Twelve Monkeys: Time Travel and Pandemic
The DocsMX 2020 Film Festival
Great, I'll be watching this then. Currently watching Jack Irish (Australian). Enjoying it, but I do like Guy Pearce (do you remember Memento?). Also, have I recommended Wellington Paranormal to you yet?
I remember Memento, but haven't heard of either Jack Irish or Wellington Paranormal. I'll put it on my growing list.😁
I just started watching StratUp though... I'm not sure... After episode 4 I'm still not convinced. I can see a lot of potential, so I'll give it a few more chances. The gringo banker, the Cuban hacker, and the Haitian thug make an interesting constellation. But that Gen-Coin they are pushing just sounds totally embarrassing the way it is presented. Like the writers (typically) had no clue about cryptos whatsoever. Can't blame them, but still... Actually, this makes me want to go back to shows from the 90's, where the writers obviously had never used the internet before, but they included some twisted notion of it in the script.
Hey! I just noticed, I'm watching the wrong show. That is, the image I included in the post is Start-ups (with an s and a -) with the subtitle Silicon Valley. The one I started watching is StartUp (set in Miami). Clearly, the cast is a different one. So let's see how I like this one, and then I can still check out the other one. But which one did you recommend? - Oh, the first one, that is StartUp. So for consistency sake, and since I've mentioned you in my post, I changed the image.
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Oh yeah, almost forgot: Beavis and Butthead is also by him. And so is Idiocracy? Wow! Never watched it until the Trump era, when many of my friends told me it was almost a docu. But if you are into all of this kinda humor, I bet you'll enjoy Silicon Valley.