S01.E01: Minimum Viable

[Tara Ariano]

Richard and his friends dream of making it big; Richard's boss offers to buy out his firm; an investor makes a counter-offer.

[Tara Ariano]

I wrote a New Show Fact Sheet!

[giovannif7]

The pilot seemed to be a basic retread of the Betas series on Amazon, which I enjoyed. Since it looks like Betas won't be getting a second season, I'll be sticking with Silicon Valley to see if they can also bring some depth to the fairly broad character stereotypes from the pilot.

[Irlandesa]

After erading so many wonderful reviews, I was surprised how underwhelmed I was.  I don't think I laughed once which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I don't think I was even amused.  My favorite stuff in the pilot came from Andy Daly as the doctor.

I am a bit torn.  The reviews come from people who have seen more than one episode so maybe I should give it another chance.  But then I have to wonder, does another show about a bunch of white guys really need or necessarily deserve my extra effort? 

I guess it will depend on whether or not I watch Game of Thrones live.  If I do, I'll probably watch this as I wait for Veep.  If I don't, I doubt I'll make an effort before Veep comes on.

[JTMacc99]

Well, I enjoyed the heck out of that. But I enjoy Mike Judge's stuff a great deal in any form.

It is the stuff like "fat guy with a pony tail" that get me.

Edited April 8, 2014 by JTMacc99

[arc]

It was enjoyable.  I was a little skeptical about the plausibility of the core innovation Richard developed, but this Wired story says Judge & co put a lot of work into thinking up something that would be plausible, so...

Middleditch was great, Nanjiani was great, ... the brogrammers and TJ Miller were good...  I wonder, given how long ago the ball started rolling on this show, if they'll work in any of the San Francisco vs Silicon Valley tension going on now (Silicon Valley workers are settling in SF and gentrifying/driving up rents like crazy) this season.  Andy Daly was definitely great, but in a role that probably won't recur.

The thing that sticks with me though is the toy that they were tossing around in the incubator party at the end, the "always blue" one. So I did a few searches on Twitter to see if anyone else had already identified it, and they had. It's a "Hoberman Switch Pitch".

[Eucrid]

I quite enjoyed this. There was a lot of set up to be done that sort of left character development for later but it was pretty funny. Now I have worked in Intel as a web designer so I did get a lot of jokes that were flying over my girlfriends head. Maybe there is a little too much specifity here for a lot of people?

I really don't get the whole "oh another show about dudes" arguments though. HBOs got 4 half hour comedys now and of the other 3 only one is a male fronted show and thats Louie. And everyone loves Louie.

[Tara Ariano]

Louie's on FX.

[Irlandesa]

I really don't get the whole "oh another show about dudes" arguments though. HBOs got 4 half hour comedys now and of the other 3 only one is a male fronted show and thats Louie. And everyone loves Louie

 

I don't separate out comedies and dramas since I pretty much watch both genres.  The "another show about dudes" argument comes in when shows about men, showcasing men, run by men dominate television.  The discrepency is even worse when it comes to premium cable.  Even when women are the stars of a show, it's not unusual for a majority of the main cast be male.

I won't outright reject a show because it's men-centric.  I love Louie (although as Tara pointed out, it's on FX).  I also love Looking which, because of its subject matter, is very male focused. 

My point with Silicon Valley is that it's not like I need another super-male show in my life.  If I had enjoyed the pilot, I'd watch it but the gender imbalance makes me wonder if I really want to put out the effort just so I can have another male-centric show in my lineup.

[JasmineFlower]

Underwhelming indeed. It definitely didn't make me laugh but I didn't hate it. Seemed to struggle to figure out how to be dramedy cause that felt a lot like a half hour drama. I'm hoping it was just a problem in terms of laying out the premise and going forward it will be a bit more enjoyable. It's quite strange that I didn't laugh since many of the actors (maybe all except Alby) have made me laugh in the past without really trying, so it was strange how unfunny this first episode felt. I think several parts they assumed would play for laughs for many,  just felt sad to me. I'll give it another two episodes or so before I bail.

[flyingexpectations]

Unfortunately as much as the subject matter of "Looking" forces it to be a male centric show, so does Silicon Valley's subject. I'm a female software engineer in silicon valley, and if the show tried to have a 50/50 gender split it would seem much less accurate to reality than an all-male cast feels. That said I'm praying that they at least passively acknowledge us girls exist with the occasional guest star since Monica seemed to be more on the business side of things instead of being a programmer herself (I may be wrong on that I was confused what her job was). 

[Ruprecht]

I loved it. From the open with the celebrity performance at a corporate event where the attendees are not into audience participation to the superficial "we cannot be great until we are good" platitudes to the accurate techno-jargon. I do agree that they need more female characters - and not "geek cute" like Monica. That said, I'm a huge fan of "Big Bang Theory" and that show took it's time with the chemistry between the male and female characters. 

Mike Judge is one of the few artists who does understand the workforce experience. Whether it's the receptionist with the annoying voice in "Office Space" or the women fussing on the assembly line in "Extract." I can't wait to see what he does with "Silicon Valley."

[lucindabelle]

Omg I laughed myself silly. My first job out if college was as an administrative assistant at Oracle, who t the time prided themselves that everyone there including receptionists went to Harvard, MIT or Stanford. I went to Stanford. I was an English major and did a lot of theatre. I was AA n research and development, so worked with all the programmers. For one worried about sexism, they were nearly ALL guys... And that hasn't changed much, I do not want TV to falsely represent a world for the sake of being politically correct. I trust the show will figure out other ways to include women. For example, in college some of my best friends (I know how that sounds but do not mean it that way) were guys in comp sci, a nd I still hung out with the hem after we graduated. It's not as if there are no women in Palo Alto or San Jose.

Anyway, Oracle parties were JUST like that, pretentious and smug. We had enforced "employee training" when we started which was classic brainwashing.... They kept us in a hotel, forced us to do outward bound stuff "bonding." Well I will admit that it did give me quickly a group of 20 friends in the company. But yeah the lavishness and waste and ego and nonsense about SQL. Plus was JUST like that (when SQL plus wasn't even something a person would use just huge companies and governments).

Larry Ellison used to park his Testarossa out front and omg the smugness. One AA began an affair with him ( a ringer! From some California school that was not Stanford! She joined later and skipped the training experience) and it was just all ick all the time.

And the programmers were sweet nerds just like that although Middleditch is more sweetly appealing.

I'm so in.