Silicon Valley (Season One)

[dreamdead]

There were a few good laughs that the series trailer didn't spoil here, the repartee is typical Judge so far. While I don't yet see how they can sustain the concept for more than a season or two, I think I'm generally intrigued enough to follow along for the rest of this season.

I'm hopeful that it'll explore some of the gender divide rather than just note its existence, ...

[Dukefrukem]

First episode on Youtube for free.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvkmsI54ss4

[Dukefrukem]

This T.J. Miller is a riot. I'm invested.

[number8]

Mike Judge has an uncanny ability to make every setting/subculture he tackles feel incredibly authentic and over the top at the same time.

[Dukefrukem]

Mike Judge has an uncanny ability to make every setting/subculture he tackles feel incredibly authentic and over the top at the same time.

He so does. I was giggling when they were walking into work at 6:19 and commenting on the Marketing team's "bike meeting"... *as you see 8 people riding one of those tandem bikes*

They have so much to play with here I have a feeling the series can only get better.

[number8]

The CEO hero worship, too. "I'm a VP here, and I only see him about 10 minutes a month. But that 10 minutes is amazing."

[Dukefrukem]

Haha. Yeh. The beginning the show is filled with them.

"A few days ago, when we sat down with Barack Obama, I turned to these guys and said OK, we're making a lot of money and yes we're disrupting digital media, but most importantly we're making the world a better place.... Take it away... my good friend KID ROCK!"

[Winston*]

The CEO hero worship, too. "I'm a VP here, and I only see him about 10 minutes a month. But that 10 minutes is amazing."

The PR images of the president in Africa and holding a lamb. ..
Fantastic cast on this show. Sad about Christopher Evan Welch. He's great here.

[number8]

Yeah. I'm not sure how much of the season he got to shoot, or how they're going to address it.

[DavidSeven]

Why didn't he ask for more from Gregory after his boss upped the offer from $4M to $10M?

$200K offer for 5% ownership = based on 5% of $4M "valuation."

...then the boss ups his offer to $10M, but the lead never even relays that number to Gregory. He just decides to take the $200K. He should be selling that 5% for $500K. I dunno -- stuff like this sticks out to me more on shows that aim for business/industry realism.

[Henry Gale]

Really liked the premiere.

I'd been hoping/saying for years that Mike Judge should do live action television because of how solid his animated shows are and how structurally well-suited for longer formatting his movies always feel (particularly Office Space and Idiocracy). And on the flipside, I've always wanted to see him try doing another animated features, since in my mind Do America is the perfect template for turning a basically narrative-less, arc-less TV series into a self-aware "big" film. So if he suddenly had an animated idea that was even more designed specifically for a one-off story in that medium, than it could be marvelous.

But for now, I'm very much into wherever he wants to take this series, and I hope it becomes another steady gig to thrive and open more opportunities for him.

[Winston*]

I love the spiritual advisor that just tells the Hooli CEO whatever he wants to hear. “In the hands of the enlightened, hate can be a tool for great change.”

[ledfloyd]

Why didn't he ask for more from Gregory after his boss upped the offer from $4M to $10M?

$200K offer for 5% ownership = based on 5% of $4M "valuation."

...then the boss ups his offer to $10M, but the lead never even relays that number to Gregory. He just decides to take the $200K. He should be selling that 5% for $500K. I dunno -- stuff like this sticks out to me more on shows that aim for business/industry realism.
But the kid is not business savvy, at all.

[number8]

Looking up "business plan" on wikipedia cracked me up.

[Winston*]

Looking up "business plan" on wikipedia cracked me up.

I have definitely done similar in my job.

[EyesWideOpen]

I'm enjoying this show and I think it's funny but I keep seeing ads where they mention "you'll laugh your ass off" and I definitely don't think this is one of those shows or is trying to be one of those shows.

[dreamdead]

Still enjoying this one. Best episode yet on Sunday, though I'm tiring of the T.J. Miller's one-note character. Hopefully he gets more dimension soon. Loved them saying their names as the other Pied Piper entered the house.

I hope the films makes more room for women on the show--certainly Richard and Monica are going to be the central romance, but this terrain could explore more interesting gender ground.

[EyesWideOpen]

Great finale. Best dick joke ever?

[number8]

So fucking funny. The more they went on the funnier it got.

[Winston*]

Laughed so hard at the finale. Combination of that dick joke and Zach Woods losing his mind.

"We're not here to tell you what to do with your rats, we're here to get you rats, stat."

[quido8_5]

Laughed so hard at the finale. Combination of that dick joke and Zach Woods losing his mind.

"We're not here to tell you what to do with your rats, we're here to get you rats, stat."

I pretty much lost my shit with that line. Zach Woods' performance and make-up were unhinged hilarity throughout the episode. Gotta' say, this was both the funniest and most promising episode of the season. I'm invested in every character at this point and it's delivering dependably funny content. Agree that it doesn't earn the "gut-busting" rep that HBO's trying to brand it with, but only to it's benefit. Can't wait for next season.

[number8]

Which one? Which one? Which one?

[Winston*]

Also, the microwave for your skin. This show is fantastic.

[Derek]

With Community gone, this may be the funniest show on tv. That finale was perfection.

Any word on how many episodes next season will be? Hopefully at least ten.

[Acapelli]

zach woods was incredible

[Henry Gale]

Yeah, this show really came together with the essentially two-part finale. The ending scenes became a little too antiseptically cheerful for me (or at least, for the episode/series considering the tone and voice of almost everything else in it), but it was still a really satisfying end to the season.

My favourite bit with defining conceptual novelty to it from earlier in the season was probably the failed hologram turned Skype conversation turned phone call at Hooli, but the Disrupt episodes were just packed with stuff like that. (Pretty much everything already mentioned, plus the wide-ranging dead-on parodying of tech conference presentations.)

Even the sorts of dialogue exchanges I could predictively quote as they unfolded ("Oh my god, every day feels like I've died and gone to hell." [confused look, "I'm sorry?"] "He's a satanist, so that's good.") kept such funny, refreshing momentums in their scenes.

Good stuff.

[dreamdead]

Enjoyable enough first season. Loved the escalating absurdity regarding the dick joke--hopefully they give Middleditch a bit more confidence next season since his essential wimpiness--while an excellent contrast with T.J. Miller's general bro-ness--is a bit too limiting. He's not quite that dynamic of a character and if he's given more shades with which to work, it'll help build out his character.

Otherwise, I repeat my desire for the show to expand out female characters so that it's not so Monica heavy.

[Dukefrukem]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpowHFQCUAAg4Cd.jpg:large

[shaun]

Seriously. This exists.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/228831637/Optimal-Tip-to-Tip-Efficiency

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/763885024681173321.gif

[number8]

If you don't know, that's written by an MIT graduate who is a compression expert and wrote the code they used for Pied Piper.

The level of technical accuracy on the show is actually pretty insane. They have a dozen tech consultants. There's a guy in the writer's room who helps the writers make sure all the jargons are accurate. There's a guy who walks around the set making sure that every notes on the white boards and post-its are things that coders would actually write. All the code you see on computer screens are actually functional. They even called around a bunch of startups to see if Pied Piper could be a viable business model, and the writers have apparently changed the story a couple of times based on feedback on whether or not a certain scenario could realistically come up.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Just burned through the first season in a day of working at home. I was sort of luke warm about the show after a couple episodes. It felt a little like it was going to constantly fall back on watching its characters fail in uncomfortable fashion to get its laughs, which isn't something I generally latch on to, but about halfway through it found a nice stride, and that finale was absolutely beautiful. I'm very much looking forward to another season and watching this group juggle their success.

[Dukefrukem]

Bwhahahaha I just finished this season- (finally)- so good.

"You're code gay- Hey, would you like to masturbate to the subroutine I just wrote?"