Silicon Valley

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 2

Third-episode verdict: Silicon Valley (HBO/Sky Atlantic)

23 April 2014 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

In the US: Sundays, 10pm, HBO
In the UK: Acquired by Sky Atlantic for summer 2014

Normally, you can pretty much get a grip on a show within a few episodes. You can tell what it’s like, what kind of things it’s going to play with and who it’s going to appeal to.

Silicon Valley is a slightly more problematic show. Set, as you might guess, in the computer capital of the world, it’s a comedy from Mike Judge that follows a programmer (Thomas Middleditch) who develops a revolutionary new compression algorithm and decides to start his own company to sell it to the world. The series then follows the various obstacles Middleditch faces, ranging from coming up with a proper business plan to incorporating the company and deciding who gets to have shares.

Finding the funny yet? 

Well it can be: the first episode was very good, thanks in part to Judge’s own experiences of working in the valley. Since then, though, it’s been variable, depending very much on individual writers’ particular interests. Episode two gave us a very finance-oriented episode that would have left the average person clueless as to what was going on, and bar a speech from one of the programmers about security – which again would have left programming neophytes for dust – was a bit short on the funnies.

Episode three was considerably better, giving us more of a character piece that bulked up the supporting cast and played with stereotypes in a relatively novel way. But tonally, it felt like a completely different show: a single-camera version of Big Bang Theory complete with music stings. True, it was a lot smarter – it even made a plot point out of the co-prime lifecycles of cicadas – and it also required an audience familiarity with cloud company mission statements, but rather than the more heightened Office Space reality of Judge’s episode, this was a conventional sitcom with an unusual setting.

So I don’t really know whether to recommend it or not. If you know both IT and finance, and deal with the corporate world a lot – I’m guessing the kind of person who can afford to subscribe to HBO in fact – this is very much your show. It’s spot-on in its satire and you’ll know exactly what they’re getting at. It still needs a bit more development and consistency if you’re to root for the characters, rather than merely observe them, but I think you’ll like it.

For everyone else, you could get lost in this, no matter how many episodes of Dragons’ Den/Shark Tank you’ve seen. It’s not easily fathomable and the more accessible jokes are by no means its funniest. It’s good, but I’m just not sure you’ll love it – certainly not when Judge isn’t writing it.

Barrometer rating: 2
Rob’s prediction: Already been renewed for a second season

News: Veep and Silicon Valley renewed, John Simm goes American for Intruders trailer + more

22 April 2014 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Canadian TV

Internet TV

  • Sarah Chalke, Selma Blair and Jay Chandrasekhar to star in Amazon comedy Really

UK TV

UK TV show casting

US TV

New US TV shows

  • Teaser for BBC America’s Intruders, with John Simm and Mira Sorvino
  • Trailer for WGN America’s Manhattan
US TV

What have you been watching? Including Fargo, Agents of SHIELD, Silicon Valley and Friends With Better Lives

17 April 2014 Rob Buckley 16 Comments


It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV.

A little bit earlier than normal, thanks to the Easter bank holidays in the UK, but we’ll back to the usual Friday slot next week. New shows I’ve already reviewed this week:

But I also watched:

Fargo (US: Tuesdays, 10pm, FX; UK: Sundays, 9pm, Channel 4, starting Sunday)
Despite the name and the Coen Brothers’ presence in the producers’ roster, rather than a straight retelling of the movie, Fargo is an anthology series, each season telling a different ‘true’ crime story from the Minnesota region, the movie effectively being just one of those stories. Indeed, despite the setting and there being a William H Macy-esque schmuck of an accountant (Martin Freeman) and a bright but unlikely female sheriff (Allison Tolman) to investigate the heinous crimes of a newly arrived criminal (Billy Bob Thornton), the show has far more in common with the Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men, right down to Billy Bob’s dark angel with an eccentric haircut and some nice-guy sheriffs (Shawn Doyle, Colin Hanks) who get close, sometimes too close, to a force of evil beyond their experiences.

While not a patch on the movie, Fargo is nevertheless a decent piece of work, well written, well shot, with some eye-opening scenes, and largely well acted, particularly by Doyle but especially by Thornton, who’s almost as mesmerising as Javier Bardem was. But it’s largely interested in issues of masculinity, what it means to be a man and what happens if you fall short of those societal demands, so the female characters get short shrift from the story. Importantly, the relatively inexperienced Tolman has yet to make anything like the impact that Frances McDormand did in the movie, although she’s likely to shift in importance in later episodes (spoiler)given Doyle unfortunately gets killed towards the end of the first episode. 

Not truly compelling, but definitely a cut above the average and I’ll be sticking around to the next episode at least.

After the jump, the regulars, with reviews of Agents of SHIELD, Arrow, Community, Continuum, Crisis, Endeavour, Friends with Better Lives, Game of Thrones, Hannibal and Silicon Valley.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Fargo, Agents of SHIELD, Silicon Valley and Friends With Better Lives”

What have you been watching? Including Agents of SHIELD, Vikings, Suits, Game of Thrones, Endeavour

11 April 2014 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV.

New shows I’ve already reviewed this week:

After the jump, the regulars, with reviews of Agents of SHIELD, Crisis, Mammon, 35 Diwrnod, 19-2, The Americans, Community, Continuum, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Elementary, Endeavour, Game of Thrones, Hannibal, House of Cards, Suits and Vikings

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Agents of SHIELD, Vikings, Suits, Game of Thrones, Endeavour”

US TV

Mini-review: Turn 1×1 (AMC)

10 April 2014 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

AMC's Turn

In the US: Sundays, 9/8c, AMC

Wars should, by their very nature, be exciting. The Revolutionary War that brought about the independence of the United States of America from British rule is such a thing of mythology and eulogisation that it’s possibly one of the most exciting wars that can be discussed or depicted. And when you add in spies as well, and get some of the best British actors on TV to take part, surely you’re onto a sure-fire adrenaline fest, no?

No. Because Turn, based on the Alexander Rose novel Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring, is a veritable snoozefest.

Largely, of course, this is down to its being on AMC. Although the network has had its fair share of successes – Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Walking Dead – none of them have got to where they are by packing every hour with a thrill a minute. And Turn seemingly takes great pains to do the same, without giving us sparkling dialogue or interesting characters to make the journey worthwhile.

Although the show is clearly going somewhere, the pilot episode really doesn’t give you that many reasons to go with it. Commendably avoiding the “British army were just as bad as Nazis” route trodden by The Patriot, Turn does take relative pains to be equitable to the Brits and to avoid hoary old cliches (no one says “The British are coming! The British are coming!” since most Americans still thought of themselves as British, for example).

Unfortunately, it does this by giving us a reluctant farmer (Jamie Bell) as a hero, his dodgy accented father (Kevin McNally) with a foot in both camps to talk a lot, a dull wife (Meegan Warner) and a slightly more interesting ex (Heather Lind) for Bell to pine over, and a British army officer (Burn Gorman) to pass out the law honourably in difficult times. The screen practically goes grey with boredom as soon as any of them appear. And when your TV can’t be bothered to watch what you’re watching, a show is in trouble.

Angus Macfadyen (Robert the Bruce in Braveheart) could be good fun as a Scottish mercenary-come-black ops ranger working for the Brits, if he weren’t mumbling every line, and Seth Numrich’s organiser of the Culper Spy Ring is so square-jawed and all-American-before-there-was-an-all-American that he disappears in a cloud of blandness in virtually every scene he’s in.

I dare say further down the line – maybe one season or even two seasons from now – something might have happened and the hours of TV-viewing involved will have paid off a little. But at a time when there’s just so much good TV on – hell, this is on the same night as just Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley, The Good Wife and Shameless alone – I doubt many people will have accompanied it that far or that it’ll all have been worth it.