Silicon Valley (2014-)
Being a big fan of Mike Judge for his old tv-show King of the Hill and movies like Office Space and Idiocracy I was beyond excited when I heard about his new show Silicon Valley, created in cooperation with John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky. The show itself is quite different from Mike Judge’s usual work, but interestingly enough is partially based on his own experience as an Engineer in Silicon Valley.
Jared, Dinesh, Erlich and Richard (left to right)- members of the Pied Piper team
Taking place in Silicon Valley, a young programmer Richard Hendricks comes up with a revolutionary compression app. He quits his job to focus on his compression app after finding that it contains a revolutionary data compression algorithm which has never been seen before. Richard forms a team with friends, who are also programmers, to focus on starting up a business of their own, called Pied Piper, in order to come up with a plan on how to make the most of their invention. Pied Piper is the best at its job, due the revolutionary algorithm they themselves created, but soon copycats enter the game and the competition begins. Perhaps because of their lack of experience or maybe it’s just their misfortune, the team constantly finds themselves in shitty situations, causing setbacks and loosing money and by the time they’ve found a solution to their problem a new one has already appeared.
Richard and Erlich’s first view of the Pied Piper logo created by the graffiti artist Erlich hired
The storyline of this show is in no way overdone, the problems and delays that Pied Piper encounter within the episodes are extremely realistic and to some extent educational. Silicon Valley demonstrates how nowadays being the best in your field, is sometimes just not enough and covert power dynamics are sabotaging everyone besides the most impertinent. Everyone’s role is believable and evoking compassion, the acting is outstanding at times and always depicts an authentic chemistry within the dialogues. Thomas Middleditch (who does some funny stand up comedy) is relatively new to the film industry and does a fantastic job at playing Richard, who has a mild case of Aspergers.
Pied Piper presenting at the TechCrunch in SF
I feel this show is a must-watch for everyone who enjoyed the smart and quirky parts of “The Big Bang Theory”, but could do without the notorious sitcom romance and drama. Also others with an interest in the start-up world and a refined sense of humour can thoroughly appreciate this very uncommon comedy.
Every episode always seems too short and has me hooked wishing I could watch the next right away.
Erlich being “seductive”
My Rating: 9/10
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