6 Reasons You Should Be Watching Silicon Valley

1. It's By Mike Judge

Beavis and Butthead. King of the Hill. Office Space. Idiocracy. Extract. To the pop-culturally unaware, that looks like a list of random words. To those of us that are a little more switched on, meanwhile, we're aware both of a list of hilarious and clever TV and films, and the through line between all of them: Mike Judge. Not only has Judge been responsible for some of the best comedy of the past couple of decades - even if they've tended more towards the cult hit than the massive success - but he actually started his career in Hollywood after bailing from a start-up company in 1987 ("The people I met were like Stepford Wives. They were true believers in something, and I don't know what it was"), so you know he knows what he's talking about. Plus, y'know, all the funny stuff. Office Space and Idiocracy are both pitch-perfect satires, hitting their targets - the banality of 9-to-5 cubicle culture and the growing idiocy of Western civilisation, respectively - dead on, whilst King of the Hill showed he could create warm, genuine characters amongst some OTT humour and Beavis and Butthead...well, are there a couple of characters that embody the early MTV spirit better? Silicon Valley synthesises all of these aspects of Judge's career perfectly, creating a show that's witty, incisive, satirical, silly, and surprisingly heart-warming when the pilot reaches its climax. Of course, given the fate of many of Judge's projects - Idiocracy was buried by the studio and almost didn't get released, and his last show The Goode Family was cancelled after one series - there's a good chance Silicon Valley might not be long for this world, so make the most of it.