Digital Review – Silicon Valley Season Five

I don’t often write about television shows, so let’s start with Season 5 of HBO’s Silicon Valley. When shows get to a fourth, or fifth, season they fall into a pocket where they can do one of two things, settle in and continue to tell jokes which begin to tend in the side of inside or l, you had to be there, while trying to not alienate new viewers. Or, show explodes everything adding new main character taking everyone, new viewer, and old, on an adventure like no other.

Silicon Valley chose the former, and they chose wisely.

I don’t like to talk about The Big Bang Theory much, but I also don’t often write about TV so it is an adventure for everyone. Around the 4th or 5th season Big Bang had a similar choice and they took the opposite path giving Mike Judge, Silicon Valley creator and sentient Exchange Server, an glimpse into his future. My issue with Big Bang, aside from when it feels like they are saving up their laughs for the next episode, always the next episode, is that when they added girlfriends/wives into the series I know that they broadened their audience mightily, but I feel like they may have alienated their core. I am all for inclusion but I also enjoy hyper specific jokes that make me feel smart.

By opting to keep the core themes of Silicon Valley stable they run the risk of, eventually, becoming stale, while giving themselves the room to make a Tesla joke which is both funny and can be stretched over several episodes. Of course most of this can be attributed to the wonderful performance by Thomas Middleditch, Martin Starr, Zach Woods, Amanda Crew, and Oscar-nominated Kumail Nanjiani (whose name I nearly spelled correctly on my first try!). The back and forth between coders Nanjiani and Starr just makes each episode that much better.

I have been a fan of the show for, well, 5 seasons now, but I have been a fan of Mike Judge now for 25 years; since Beavis and Butt-head, King of the Hill, and Office Space. He has the ability, whether with his Southern/Midwest animation or his spot on look at office politics he is a name that, when I see it, I know will, at the very least, entertain me. I am assuming that he is a real person, I have never seen a photograph of him so he could, at this point, be the embodiment of an Exchange E-mail Server since he has the ability to sift through the boring and highlight the tech moments that are ridiculous yet prescient.

I am writing this because you can buy a digital copy of Silicon Valley Season 5 today, June 11th, and I assume all days after this one.