‘Silicon Valley’ Pilot Review: ‘Office Space’ Creator Has A New Hit At HBO

HBO's newest offering, 'Silicon Valley,' is set to premiere April 6 at 10pm ET and you MUST tune in! Just in case you haven't heard about this incredible new show (or even if you have), click through to watch the Season 1 trailer and read on for our review! HBO's Silicon Valley is co-created by Mike Judge, who also wrote and directed cult classic Office Space. It stars up-and-coming comic actor Thomas Middleditch as Richard, a timid but ambitious employee of Hooli, a fictional tech company that is baaaasically Google. While he does that, Richard also works in his spare time on a program with a terrible, commercially non-viable concept but with an algorithm at its heart that starts a bidding war between the biggest names in tech. Read on for our full review!

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Reading Time: 3 minutes
April 6, 2014 10:00AM EDT

‘Silicon Valley’ Pilot Review: Creator Of ‘Office Space’, Mike Judge, Has A New Hit

It’s Richard’s dream to launch “Pied Piper” — the “Google of music” which will, upon its launch, enable songwriters, musicians, and whomever else “to search the whole world of recorded music to find out if theres a match to see if [they’re] infringing on any copyright material.” You’d be correct in thinking that this is not something that the masses are generally clamoring for from Richard.

However, at the core of Richard’s commercially non-viable idea is a genius algorithm that, when discovered by Gavin Belson (Matt Ross), his boss, and Peter Gregory (the late Christopher Evan Welch), a venture capitalist, it sets off an intense bidding war that Richard could have never prepared himself for. (His immediate response is a panic attack followed by vomiting into a garbage can. Been there, buddy.)

Richard lives in an “incubator” (read: collection of nerds) along with Big Head (Josh Brener; The Internship), Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani; Portlandia), and Gilfoyle (Martin Starr; Party Down, Freaks & Geeks) in the home of Elrich (T.J. Miller; Our Idiot Brother), who sold his company “Aviato” for a tidy sum and now endeavors to inspire creativity in others. (For a stake in their respective ventures should they make it big.) Mostly, Elrich just wears bathrobes and eats cereal.

‘Silicon Valley’ Fails The Bechdel Test; Still A Must-Watch

While Silicon Valley is not about to pass the Bechdel test any time soon (the show’s only starring female is Amanda Crew as Monica, Peter’s assistant of sorts), it’s still a must-see for any comedy fan. Zach Woods (Gabe from The Office) also stars as Jared, Gavin’s advisor.

The humor in Silicon Valley celebrates nerd culture more than making it the butt of the joke, as other nerd-focused comedies often tend toward. Watch it — trust us. You’ll love the sense of superiority you’ll feel having watched Thomas Middleditch in his first big role before he blows up the comedy world.

No HBO? No problem! You can catch the first episode on HBO’s YouTube channel between April 7 at 10AM ET and April 28 at 10am ET! You really have no excuse not to watch this show.

What do you think, HollywoodLifers? Will you be tuning in to Silicon Valley? Let us know.

— Amanda Michelle Steiner

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