A lot of stuff in there is rip-roaring funny, and even the cringe-worthy moments are pretty amusing. If you're a techie, you'll get a lot of these references. Even if you're not, just watching the geeks mill around trying to get things to work, is a rewarding experience.
Warning - many spoilers, lots of motherfucking profanity and politically incorrect jokes
You think nerds don't swear? They do. In spades.There might also be a couple nude scenes in there, none of which are particularly titillating unless man boobs is your thing.
Finally, the show tends to be very vulgar. You have been duly warned!
The Premise
The story revolves around a group of engineers who create a product, set up a company around it and attempt to take it to launch, chronicling the numerous obstacles and setbacks they encounter along the way. The season ends with a huge victory, but with foreshadowing of even more, This is just the beginning of their trials and tribulations.This being the first season, and if my experiences with TV serials are any indication, this will be the simplest, most uncomplicated one.
The Characters
Thomas Middleditch as Richard Hendricks. The shy nerd with beyond awkward social skills, who happens to be a brilliant programmer. Through Season 1, we see him transform to his more assertive self, especially in front of a computer console. Middleditch starts off not being very memorable in the role, but by the end of the season, he totally nails the character. To be fair, it's hard to be charismatic in a role that requires you not to be.TJ Miller utterly hams it up as the obnoxious, crude and egoistical Erlich Bachman. I last saw Miller in Office Christmas Party and Deadpool. He's every bit as good here, in fact more so. He comes off as this unrepentant douchebag with a few redeeming personality traits here and there. Richard Hendricks may be the protagonist, but as a supporting character, Bachmann threatens to steal the show with every appearance. There are few things to come out of his mouth that aren't descriptively profane, side-splitting funny or scenery-chewing.
Zach Woods plays the anxious but gentle Jared Dunn. It's an understated performance and we never really get a handle on how important the character is to the team until the show focuses on the business side of things. That's where Woods shines, bringing his character's sharp administrative mind to the fore. As forWoods himself, I found that face vaguely familiar and a search of his filmography caused me to realize that I had seen him before in the opening scenes of the Ghostbusters remake.
Kumail Nanjiani is Dinesh Chugtai, the Pakistani programmer whose insecurity is stamped upon his puppy-dog eyes. The character interacts mostly with Gilfoyle, and their chemistry together is amazing. He also provides a perfect platform for some of the racial jokes in the show.
Martin Starr as Bertram Gilfoyle. Gilfoyle is this snarky nihilistic dude, and a Satanist. He's also the infrastructure guy of the team. He and Dinesh bicker constantly and it's riveting to watch. Martin Starr delivers his lines with deadpan deliciousness. You may have seen him in Spiderman: Homecoming.
Nelson "Big Head" Bighetti is played with just the right amount of dazed goofiness by Josh Brener. He adds a charming quirkiness to the show with his gee-shucks demeanor. The character is a slacker who does what he does for fun and isn't really serious about his job. He represents the laid-back geek stereotype.
The late Christopher Evan Welch plays the eccentric but brilliant businessman Peter Gregory. We see him as this unfriendly and stand-offish dude who somehow always has a method to his seeming madness.
Amanda Crew as Monica Hall. Didn't think much of the character at first, but she started to grow on me as the series went on. A flower among the thorns, but she's a lot more than eye candy - she presents the logical business side that the gang badly need, so much so that Jared starts feeling threatened in another really funny, yet touching segment near the end.
Matt Ross plays Gavin Belson, CEO of Hooli, as this aggressive ruthless and competitive with over-the-top hamminess that rivals Erlich Bachmann. It's a great performance which cements the CEO as a flawed human being with a lot of money and single-minded vindictiveness. His comic timing is just about perfect.
Comedian Jimmy O. Yang as Jian Yang. Jian Yang is this awkward Chinese nerd with horrible pronunciation and really atrocious command of English. He doesn't get many scenes here, but the ones he has with Erlich are hilarious. It's even more amazing when you consider that Jimmy O. Yang is a pretty articulate dude outside of the show. Check out his stand-up routine!
Ben Feldman as Ron LaFlamme. He only appears in one episode and is mentioned in passing in others, but boy does he make his presence felt every time he shows up. Smarmy and sleazy with a roguish charm, he totally represents the frat-boy culture that Silicon Valley keeps taking potshots at. But the impression we get is that he has to be more than passingly competent - after all, he was recommended by Peter Gregory. Eerily resembles a much younger Robert Downey Jr.
Austin Abrams as Kevin "The Carver". A teenager who radiates cockiness and confidence. Totally seems to have his shit together, and the entire gang is taken in by his reputation as a hacker, right up to the point where he royally screws everything up. Check out this amusing Burn-down Chart above!
Andy Daly as the unnamed doctor. Now, this seems to be very antithesis of what a doctor should be. Obnoxious and insensitive with a penchant for taking potshots at his patient Richard Hendricks, Daly is hilarious in this role and a welcome presence in the few scenes he does show up in.
Bernard White is Denpok, Gavin's spiritual advisor. Lends an air of serenity to the scenes he appears in, but there's a very subtle smell of bullshit surrounding every action. It's too early to tell, but I have this feeling that time will reveal him as a charlatan. If that's truly the end-game, White's performance here is brilliantly understated.
Jill E. Alexander as Patrice. Gavin's personal assistant, who seems totally star-struck by Gavin and acts like some gushing fangirl.
Aly Mawji and Brian Tiechnel as the brogrammers at Hooli who are set up as Richard's competition. They share an easy vibe and were pretty watchable.
The Mood
We actually kick off with a party atmosphere, with Kid Rock providing the music, live. Throughout the series, there are basically a few atmospheres - noisy party time (Flo Rida and an offscreen Shakira cameo at some point in the show), geek gathering with light-hearted geek banter, crunch time with techs furiously concentrating, and presentation time (which either takes place in an office, or in the finale, a big stage).Ultimately, a lot of it is kept light. There's very little tension, and honestly, expectations are kept so low that even if the Pied Piper Team fails, it just doesn't feel like that big a deal.
What I liked
Erlich's t-shirts. Props to the costume department!
NipAlert, Spinder, Panic-A-Tech - all the utterly ridiculous app ideas that are being pitched oh-so-earnestly by their creators.
Every time Richard gets pedantic. It's predictable but funny.
Erlich's initial dislike of Jared coloring everything he says.
Erlich telling Richard to "be an asshole, or this company will die". Later, in the same episode, when he finally pushes Richard too far, Richard does start talking like an asshole and Erlich's impressed. It was a smart jab at the Steve Jobs Myth and the likes of Travis Kalanick.
The gang taking turns to simulate shouting company names during sex, after Erlich tells Richard that a company name has to be some "primal", that can be screamed out during intercourse. This is a perfect example of the entire show's very casual locker room talk style. Also, I'm not even slightly gay, but objectively, TJ Miller's way of saying "Aviato" is pretty sexy.
The Peter Gregory segment with the Burger King fixation. It's not that funny, but it does show just how brilliant this guy is, in a very convoluted way.
Jared successfully plays Gilfoyle off against Dinesh and makes them both work extra hard in the process. It's funny because his psychological ploy is painfully transparent, and yet the egos of the two programmers make them rise to the challenge.
Dinesh using a decision chart to decide if he should sleep with Gilfoyle's girlfriend. Just so geeky.
The part in the final episode where the group was earnestly discussing how long it would take for Erlich to give every male in the audience a hand job, complete with variables and mathematical formulae. I must have watched that scene a thousand times. Dinesh, Gilfoyle and Erlich were in total engineer mode, and it was hilarious to behold considering the subject matter. Even Jared got in the act. This actually ended up as the subject of a paper in real life!
Even the racist stereotypes in there seem to be there purely to take jabs at racism. And for every obvious racial negative stereotype that's shown, there are plenty of counter-examples. Take Jian Yang, for instance. We see him as this stuttering fresh-off-the-boat Chinese who seems really slow on the uptake. But throughout the show, we see some intelligent-looking Asian dude who tells his boss on the phone that "this kid Hendricks and Pied Piper just ran a two-minute mile and we should get on this" in very articulate English, Dan Melcher's wife (played by a gorgeous Lynn Chen) who seems smart and friendly.
What I didn't
The first couple episodes weren't really that interesting. Plenty happened, but somehow the characters didn't quite grow on me until maybe the third episode.Monica and Richard's budding romance seems irrelevant, but I guess we'll see if it actually goes somewhere in later seasons.
Some of the sideplots were funny but seemed like total time-wasters. Example, Richard being obsessed with Sherry. And Jared being kidnapped by the automated car.
The sideplot where Dinesh gets sexually aroused by Gilfoyle's Java code was pretty amusing, but I thought it was established early on that Dinesh was the only guy in there that did Java? But, that being said, the dialogue is classic Gilfoyle.
Damn, I was really hoping that Richard would puke on Monica in the final scene of the last episode, the way he did to Erlich in an earlier episode. Didn't happen, though.
Conclusion
This is a really smart statement on the state of Silicon Valley. A lot of it is played for laughs, but at the core of it, there are several jabs at the geek culture and the pretentiousness, superficiality and bullshit ("making the world a better place", the brogrammer culture, buzzwords like "lo-mo-so" for a few examples) that permeates much of the industry. Also, a heartwarming story about the underdog that beats the big, evil corporation. What's not to love?This is a tech drama-comedy, sure, but it's also very human. Everyone's foibles are there on show, and even the bad guys are easy to relate to. I'm really looking forward to watching the other seasons.
My Rating
9 / 10
So-long, mo-fos!
T___T
T___T
No comments:
Post a Comment