Over time, one comes to realise that the better modern sitcoms/comedy series are those which do not have laugh tracks tacked on. Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Modern Family and Master of None are just three examples of this.
Silicon Valley, like the last of those examples, is also a drama with an overarching story, which so far has taken place over four seasons. The HBO original follows Richard Hendricks as he tries desperately to get his software company, Pied Piper, off the ground, with his friends/colleagues Jared, Gilfoyle, Dinesh and Erlich.
Set in the titular location, Silicon Valley manages to excellently capture the environment of the world’s leading technology hub, and often becomes a parody of it too. It has quite a vast mix of characters, from CEOs to investors to lawyers to competitors, and it does a great job of balancing all these characters, especially in seasons three and four.
This leads into a criticism of the first two seasons, which do feature stories that are good enough, but are stubbornly one-note when it comes to its characters, except Richard. Erlich, Jared, Dinesh and Gilfoyle are one-dimensional, especially the last two, which does get a little tiring because there are often the same dynamics between the two.
Season three, however, allows for better character development, and it allows the show to live up to its title, rather than just being ‘the Richard Hendricks show’. The humour also steps up from the third season on, and it does feel like the writers seemed to understand what worked in the first two seasons and kept going down those paths. Seasons one and two feature some good humour, but oftentimes it does feel rather unoriginal. Seasons three and four have a certain flair to them, almost as if it could be used as a comparative tool for other shows. ‘It has a Silicon Valley-esque approach to humour‘.
The crowning jewel is season three, for which I cannot remember having found any flaws. While it is clear that the show completely understands what it is in the fourth season, there are certainly some questionable creative decisions towards the end, especially regarding Richard, which sort of make the character’s growth over time a little redundant.
Even as initially one-dimensional as the other characters are, there is no denying that they have their own distinct charms. Erlich is, by far, the funniest, thanks not only to the writing, but also to TJ Miller’s perfect performance. Gilfoyle, the show’s own biggest critic, and Dinesh, the show’s token loser tech guy, play off each other really well as time goes on, mostly because their relationship changes from being one dominating the other, to both trying to be dominant over one another. Jared, who is a really, really strange character if you catch all the absurd throw-away lines there are about his lifestyle and his past, is my personal favourite, being responsible, soft and having all the show’s deepest feelings attached to him.
The show has strong supporting characters too, from the snobbish CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world, Gavin Belson, to Nelson ‘Big Head’ Bagetti, an idiot who stumbles upon good fortune without even knowing it, all the time. And that’s only mentioning two of them.
Finally, it is upsetting that TJ Miller is leaving the show for good, for a number of reasons, and the way his character is written off the show is rather disappointing.
Silicon Valley is funny, engaging and clever, and seems to get better with each season. It isn’t perfect, but it is definitely worth watching.
On a scale where M is the lowest and R is the highest possible rating, with the highlighted letter being the rating:
The Geeky Critic 