Maybe you’d heard some rumblings about Mike Judge’s new HBO show? Something about the tech industry, right? Sounded promising, in a low-stakes kind of way? Well, forget all that humble crap: With just a 30-second teaser, Judge’s Silicon Valley should now have forced its way on to your most-anticipated-things list. I’m not saying it has to top the list, necessarily. You can certainly keep “Coming of Jesus/other messiahs” at no. 1, and “Free cone day at Ben & Jerry’s” at no. 2. But this should definitely be in, like, the top 20?
Four quick reasons why:
1. In 2009, the marketing folks behind Extract pushed it as “Mike Judge returns to the workplace,” which never quite stuck. You want a proper in-spirit Office Space sequel, though, with all its droll musings and general low-level self-hatred? Silicon Valley is maybe here for you.
2. The cast is killer: Martin Starr and Kumail Nanjiani were basically bred in an evil scientist’s laboratory to play mean tech guys, and it’s always nice to see T.J. Miller — here as some kind of noodle-slurping sage (“Build something”) — out from behind the Cloverfield camera. Main dude Thomas Middleditch is less well known, but he killed it on that web series The Morning After, and that’s good enough for me.
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4. Between True Detective and Looking, HBO’s kind of crushing it again. Let’s go ahead and believe in its infallibility once more?
5. “Snack dick.” Snack dick.