The travails of people trying to thrive in the shark tank that is America’s big technology development hub are a subject that is ripe for both comedy and drama. And indeed, someone already has made it into a comedy, with Amazon/LoveFilm’s sitcom Betas already through one short season. Silicon Valley, however, is getting the Mike Judge treatment via HBO, and a teaser is now online.
Though it’s tough to get much more than a vague feeling for the tone based on a short teaser, Judge’s series promises to be a lot darker and moodier than Betas, and boasts a higher profile cast including T.J. Miller, Thomas Middleditch, Zach Woods, Kumail Nanjiani, Martin Starr, Josh Brener, Christopher Evan Welch, and Amanda Crew in the story of a group of friends trying to make it in the booming industry.
Given the man in charge, we’d expect acidic satire and plenty of solid humour. It’ll also hopefully give Judge a better outlet and more luck than many of his recent projects including Extract and TV flop The Goode Family. HBO allows Judge and regular co-writers John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky latitude to go further, but it also doesn’t guarantee a long run – just ask Stephen Merchant and his Hello Ladies team about that.
Silicon Valley is set to arrive on April 6 in the US and will probably head over here via Sky Atlantic, but there has been no official word on that yet. And whatever the result, it has got to be better than The Internship, right?