“Bachmanity Insanity” Written by Carson Mell Directed by Eric Appel Airs Sundays at 10pm on HBO Silicon Valley is a reliably hilarious show and an astute critique of the excesses of corporate America and the tech industry. It’s also a sausage fest (much like the real Silicon Valley). The gender dynamics of the show have …
Silicon Valley, Season 3, Episode 5: “The Empty Chair” Written by Megan Amram Directed by Eric Appel Airs Sunday at 10pm on HBO As funny as Silicon Valley can be, it’s rarely a good times show; Richard Hendricks requires a minimum level of crisis in order to reach peak nervous mania, and the show’s writing is …
Silicon Valley, Season 3, Episode 3: “Maleant Data Systems Solutions” Written by Donick Cary Directed by Charlie McDowell Airs Sundays at 10pm on HBO At the end of last week’s very funny but somewhat stuffed episode, Richard’s plan to circumvent Jack’s wishes had been discovered and he was in danger of being fired for his …
Silicon Valley, Season 3, Episode 3: “Meinertzhagen’s Haversack” Written by Adam Countee Directed by Charlie McDowell Airs Sundays at 10pm on HBO The end of last week’s episode of Silicon Valley was the biggest blow to Richard’s original Pied Piper vision yet; the new CEO Barker had gone all in on the presumably misguided advice of …
Silicon Valley, Season 3, Episode 1: “Founder Friendly” Written by Dan O’Keefe Directed by Mike Judge Silicon Valley, Season 3, Episode 2: “Two in the Box” Written by Ron Weiner Directed by Mike Judge Airs Sundays at 10pm on HBO The great success of Mike Judge’s Silicon Valley has been how effortlessly it manages to mock the …
Real comedy still happens on late night, we can prove it. If you like Conan comedy gold, Fallon friendliness, cutesy Corden, list-making Letterman, kneedy Kimmel, and all the rest, I hope you’ll enjoy this column too. Since Dave retired and the Summer weekly talk-show break eased into Summer talk-show down time, mostly occupied by a few …
Richard Hendricks can’t have nice things. It’s not that he doesn’t allow himself to have nice things or even that he doesn’t want to have nice things, it is that he is almost karmicly incapable of having nice things. Through either incredible worry or the incredible stupidity of others, Richard is never allowed to be on unqualified winner. Part of this is due to Richard being an unconfident dweeb, but it is also due to the fact that Richard is the main character on a TV show and thus can’t be top dog for very long. Stories of winners constantly winning become boring because deserved success is boring. It’s fun to watch a single arc of a story be about winning (Friday Night Lights season one) but eventually that team has to start losing (Friday Night Lights season two). So, by the transitive property of TV trope math, because Richard Hendricks is a TV character, he can’t have nice things.