Give or take a few lesser episodes and this is one of the funnier comedies with a plot currently on TV.
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Last Sunday thousands crowed around their TV’s, anxiously awaiting an amazing series finale that they will talk about for months to come… Then after Game of Thrones finished Silicon Valley came on.
The show is probably one of the least known HBO shows that’s still airing. Coming from the creator of Office Space, the comedy is about the trials and tribulations of establishing a start-up company in the titular area. In the first series we were introduced to Richard Hendricks, a socially inept coder working at the largest tech company in the business, who in his spare time, worked on a personal app. While everyone universally agrees that his app idea is doomed to fail, his compression algorithm is revolutionary, shrinking file sizes up to ten times. Once this gets out he becomes the industry’s golden goose overnight.
Series two is very much a continuation of quality from the original. For a comedy with such a small amount of episodes (10 per series) and a brilliant concept, it still struggles with the occasional dud episode, and while the writing is generally very tight, sometimes jokes can come across very heavy handed and forced. However, when it does humour well, it does it really well. The show I found myself comparing it to most was The Office US and it’s off-hand jokes about the lack of common sense in American business. Imagine Silicon Valley as the non-mockumentary The Office, with less of the emotional drama, more of the industry humour, and about the same amount of awkward moments. The lines are incredibly quotable while the consistently strong performances only make them shine further, with each character feeling fully believable and taking the script’s highlights to another level of brilliance.
If you’re the kind of person that hates The Big Bang Theory for its lack-lustre ‘nerd’ humour; then this is the show to watch for it be done right.
Silicon Valley Season 2 aired on Sky Atlantic.
