SILICON VALLEY – Live-action comedy developed by Mike Judge; rated TV-MA; airs Sundays on HBO; 30 minutes. Episode 1.1: “Minimum Viable Product” (original airdate, April 6, 2014). Directed by Mike Judge; written by John Altschuler, Dave Krinsky, & Mike Judge (8 out of 10)
“Silicon Valley” is to its namesake what “King of the Hill” was for exurban Texas. Indeed, it’s the perfect blend of some of Mike Judge’s other work, specifically “King of the Hill,” “Office Space,” and a touch of “Idiocracy.” Indeed, Judge’s co-producers and writers for this episode are old King of the Hill alums, so the brand of humor is fairly well tread. It’s funny, it’s farcical, and maybe even a little too on the nose of what it’s making fun of.
This first episode opens at a house party where Kid Rock is playing to basically no one, while everyone is celebrating the acquisition of the next big thing and a major payout to its inventors. Meanwhile, we’re introduced to our cast of geeks, who are at the party to “network” and hopefully sell their ideas for a payout of their own.
The main cast all live in a house in Silicon Valley, a “tech incubator” run by Erlich, who made several million developing “Aviato” and then selling it to Frontier Airlines. So he is now “giving back” by sponging off the ideas of his housemates (and giving them pointless mentoring), hoping one of them invents the next big thing, which he will then own a stake in.
Anyone familiar with the tech industry, programmers, or startup culture will be instantly familiar with the basic characters here. If there’s any fault with the show, it’s that the main characters are slightly generic.
Who isn’t generic is T.J. Miller (“The Goodwin Games,” “She’s Out of My League”) as Erlich, who is as obnoxious and stupid as you would expect.
You also get some excellent performances by Matt Ross (“Big Love”) as Gavin Belson, who plays a charismatic CEO who tries to acquire their Pied Piper software. For those of you who liked him as a polygamist cult leader in Big Love, it’s almost the same kind of character.
This is a great start for what I hope to be a great show. Stick around after “Game of Thrones” next week and watch it, sandwiched nicely between GoT and “Veep.”
Overall rating: 8 out of 10
CAST:
Thomas Middleditch as Richard Hendrix, T. J. Miller as Erlich, Zach Woods as Jared Dunn, Kumail Nanjiani as Dinesh, Martin Starr as Gilfoyle, Josh Brener as Big Head, Christopher Evan Welch as Peter Gregory, Amanda Crew as Monica, Angela Trimbur as Langdon