Resident Theologian
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The question for Silicon Valley
A single question has lingered over Mike Judge's Silicon Valley from the beginning. That question is whether he and his writing team—call them "the show"—believe that Richard and his unlikely crew of can-do programming losers not only can but ought to "win," and that such a win could be genuinely transformative and good for the world, or whether the system and culture of Silicon Valley are so fundamentally corrupted that even to win is to lose.
This dynamic has made the show worth watching till the end, but frustrating at times as well. It's not just whether Richard or his friends might "break bad," which the show entertained for a while. It's whether we, the audience, ought to cheer on Richard when he triumphs over the big bads of Google and Twitter and Facebook (or their stand-in "Hooli"), with his dream of a "free internet," or whether we ought to see through the self-serving rhetoric that attends every such dream.
Judge et al have given enough hints and plot turns to suggest that they know where they're headed and that the destination will be just as dark and pessimistic as the show's heart has proven to be throughout. But going on sixty hours of watching Richard blunder his way, with occasional eloquence, through one obstacle after another also suggests that the show might fall victim to the trap all TV writers fall into: coming to love their characters too much to let them lose. How can you give viewers lack of resolution, a sad and humiliating conclusion to spending time with "their friends" for so long?
I hope Judge sticks to his guns and (to mix metaphors) sticks the landing. Silicon Valley needs an ending fitting to Silicon Valley IRL. That ending should be pitch black. There is no saving it. To win is to lose. The internet is doomed: no algorithm or digital wizardry can redeem it.
Richard represents all those tech gurus who came before, a true believer before the windfall comes. Let the curtain descend on this once-idealistic CEO, awash in fame and money, sitting on the throne of an empire that continues to tyrannize us all. Whether he is smiling or weeping, that's the only honest end to this tech-start-up story, because the story is the same for all of them. Begin with hope, run the race, keep the faith—and finish with despair.
This dynamic has made the show worth watching till the end, but frustrating at times as well. It's not just whether Richard or his friends might "break bad," which the show entertained for a while. It's whether we, the audience, ought to cheer on Richard when he triumphs over the big bads of Google and Twitter and Facebook (or their stand-in "Hooli"), with his dream of a "free internet," or whether we ought to see through the self-serving rhetoric that attends every such dream.
Judge et al have given enough hints and plot turns to suggest that they know where they're headed and that the destination will be just as dark and pessimistic as the show's heart has proven to be throughout. But going on sixty hours of watching Richard blunder his way, with occasional eloquence, through one obstacle after another also suggests that the show might fall victim to the trap all TV writers fall into: coming to love their characters too much to let them lose. How can you give viewers lack of resolution, a sad and humiliating conclusion to spending time with "their friends" for so long?
I hope Judge sticks to his guns and (to mix metaphors) sticks the landing. Silicon Valley needs an ending fitting to Silicon Valley IRL. That ending should be pitch black. There is no saving it. To win is to lose. The internet is doomed: no algorithm or digital wizardry can redeem it.
Richard represents all those tech gurus who came before, a true believer before the windfall comes. Let the curtain descend on this once-idealistic CEO, awash in fame and money, sitting on the throne of an empire that continues to tyrannize us all. Whether he is smiling or weeping, that's the only honest end to this tech-start-up story, because the story is the same for all of them. Begin with hope, run the race, keep the faith—and finish with despair.