Mini reviews of Television seasons old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. Occasional bunnies.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Silicon Valley (2014)

Kid Rock is the poorest person here aside from you guys. There is 40 billion dollars of net worth walking around this party and you guys are standing around drinking shrimp and talking about what cum tastes like.
Richard Hendricks is a programmer who works at Hooli, a fictional facsimile of tech companies like Google, who lives in an incubator: a group home for programmers who pay rent with a share of any future programs they may or may not sell. When a piece of code he writes shows promise, he is quickly thrust into the high stakes world of Silicon Valley venture capitalists and billionaire CEO's, a situation which he is completely unprepared for with just being a stereotypical tech nerd who is prone to panic attacks and anxiety induced vomiting. To help build his new tech start-up he enlists his incubator roommates, Dinesh and Guilfoyle, along with the incubator landlord, Erlich Bachman, who comes along since the terms of the incubator gives him 10 percent of the new company. They all bring something to the table despite their idiosyncrasies like Dinesh and Guilfoyle's constant competition with each other and Erlich's penchant for grandstanding and taking copious amounts of drugs.

Mike Judge uses his insider knowledge of the tech world to make a hilarious and witty send-up of tech culture. The humor from the show uses nerd stereotypes, but in a way that isn't watered down with offensively inoffensive sitcom jokes. It both prods and revels in geekdom  like Big Bang Theory wishes it did. There is much less of the technobabble that is part of most other shows since the creators and producers are steeped in the culture or did their research so jokes made about, say, videogames sounds natural instead of forced and borderline insulting and derisive. The show is well produced which isn't surprising given the HBO pedigree and the only real shame is there is only 8 episodes.

Buyer's Guide:
Available streaming on HBO GO and iTunes as well as DVD and BluRay sets from hbo.com.

5 Fucking Billionaires out of 5

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