At first, the painfully awkward male lead of Silicon Valley doesn’t inspire any real interest. Thomas Middleditch is a geek/nerd in this HBO series about the start-up culture in Silicon Valley. While working what is essentially a drudge job at Hooli, he stumbles upon a ‘revolutionary data compression algorithm’. Suddenly, he’s propelled into another level altogether.
Hendricks, though, is no green youth. He holds on to his algorithm, and decides to fully develop it with his friends at the incubator run by Erlich Bachmann (a brilliant TJ Miller). What sets apart Hendricks from the rest, is his sheer nerve and willingness to always play fair. As a fairly new start-up with game changing technology, Hendricks’ Pied Piper is in the sights of men and women with unlimited wealth. As such, Hendricks finds it hard to execute things the way he wants when he wants to. There’s palpable frustration and a whole lot of roadblocks, but the team braves them all to find their way eventually – helped along by a whole lot of ‘masturbation’ gags and the strange mother hen tendencies of Donald Dunn aka Jared (Zach Woods).
Recommended
Silicon Valley is a satirical look at the tech industry, and offers sharp, up to date commentary on the goings on in Silicon Valley. One of its key attributes is the way it has kept in touch with the developments in the tech world, allowing it to fully capture the good and the bad. But by far, despite a solid four season run, Silicon Valley remains one of the most underrated comedy shows out there. Flashier series like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Master of None are likely to reign supreme, in part due to Silicon Valley’s niche humour.
Written by Alec Berg and Mike Judge, Silicon Valley is what The Big Bang Theory could be. It wears its nerd status proudly, and offers the audience a rare peek inside the world of tech giants and the million Davids who rise up to battle them time and again.
*****