Silicon Valley
Mike Judge
Mike Judge (almost) never misses. And this one hit the mark with a strong cast that did great (and terrible) things.
Home · Comedy · 53 Episodes @ ~30min
Silicon Valley is so good it was painful at times. I may not be a FANG engineer but I worked in a techy, startup where the jokes were hitting very close to home.
Mike Judge, et al., did what he's always been so good at -- taking a slice of life and painting it up just enough to be outlandishly accurate and wonderfully entertaining. Office Space, King of the Hill, Idiocracy and his latest Common Side Effects, all capture a time and place so well with incisive scenarios and belly-laughing dialogue that can be appreciated by those near or afar to the object of ridicule.
This one nails the "move fast and break things" nature of a startup with the all-powerful nature of our FAANG tech overlords. It's got the rise-to-tech-power, the incumbent legacy tech, and the zany personalities along the way that lend themselves to all the beautiful technology we enjoy and/or are tormented by.
Zach Woods is the central comedy conveyor in this one for me as he perfectly plays the emotionless operations officer that keeps the whole group moving towards the big picture. Martin Starr plays a perfect software developer alongside Kumail Ali Nanjiani as a yin to the yang. And then there's Middleditch who's a fine enough Zucker-esque and the larger than life T. J. Miller who played his part perfectly.
The premise doesn't really matter, nor does your familiarity with tech. It uses the tried-and-true sitcom formula each season, where the group is in an almost identical position with something going wrong in a new, exciting, funny fashion each episode alongside incremental character and plot development. And the six-season arc delivers a pretty darn good ending, all increments considered, when we do get off the sitcom hamster wheel. But I didn't want to. Because even though it's formulaic and stupid and absurd, it's a fantastic 30-minutes with a great cast.
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