Silicon Valley season 4

[notjosh]

I really get the impression that Richard's decentralised network will prove successful just by the way it was played down.

Apparently it's based on a real-world platform called Ethereum. I actually have sufficient faith in the predictive power of this series that I've decided to invest a decent chunk of money into it in the hope it will turn out to be the next Bitcoin.

NEW PAGE NEW INTERNET

[amnesiac]

Apparently it's based on a real-world platform called Ethereum. I actually have sufficient faith in the predictive power of this series that I've decided to invest a decent chunk of money into it in the hope it will turn out to be the next Bitcoin.

NEW PAGE NEW INTERNET

blockchain is HUGE right now, baby, HUGE, go big! I'm in for 5 lots on the 2nd tranche.

[amnesiac]

I really get the impression that Richard's decentralised network will prove successful just by the way it was played down. Also where's the female characters this year?

Jing Jang is my new favourite peripheral; a total pain in the arse non-enigmatic non-geek stereotype. I love the way he gets under Erlich's skin.

I'm so pleased that non-techies love this show, it probably wouldn't have survived without you guys.

When you ask where the women are and 3 turn up!

Best thing about Ep3 was Jared screaming. I love that payoff you get with a really calm character cutting loose.

Really want to find out where Seefood is heading, will that be this season's surprise hit? COME ON JIAN YANG!

[BritishHobo]

I don't know if it's just being stupid or intentional on the show's part, but I didn't cotton on that anything was suspicious about Bighead's enrolment; just that it was based on his profile and not his skills. Got a proper giggle after the reveal, out of recalling his confused wittering about the college; "I asked if there'd be homework and they're, like, 'if you want'..."

I thought it was because of his name power, they're happy to keep him as a student to the extent that he doesn't have to do any work. Fuck I love Big Head. I'm constantly happy that they eventually returned him to the fold.

[phantom_power]

I don't know if it's just being stupid or intentional on the show's part, but I didn't cotton on that anything was suspicious about Bighead's enrolment; just that it was based on his profile and not his skills. Got a proper giggle after the reveal, out of recalling his confused wittering about the college; "I asked if there'd be homework and they're, like, 'if you want'..."

I thought it was because of his name power, they're happy to keep him as a student to the extent that he doesn't have to do any work. Fuck I love Big Head. I'm constantly happy that they eventually returned him to the fold.

Yeah I think that was what they were going for. You were supposed to think he was getting a free ride because of his name and then...switcheroo...he is a lecturer

This latest episode has really thrown the cat among the pigeons and it will be interesting to see how it all falls out. I think SeeFood will be a big hit that they all end up focussing on and Jiang will end up being the CTO/CEO of their new company. That would be a great way to treat a character who up to this point has been a bit of a one-note joke

[funtimefrankie]

I don't know if it's just being stupid or intentional on the show's part, but I didn't cotton on that anything was suspicious about Bighead's enrolment; just that it was based on his profile and not his skills. Got a proper giggle after the reveal, out of recalling his confused wittering about the college; "I asked if there'd be homework and they're, like, 'if you want'..."

I thought it was because of his name power, they're happy to keep him as a student to the extent that he doesn't have to do any work. Fuck I love Big Head. I'm constantly happy that they eventually returned him to the fold.

I can see him roping in his students to helping on seefood and the nip alert app being very useful.

Its an interesting world they've built.

Going to see Gavin Belson though - hooli have the patents he wants dont they? not gavin? who at this point is presumably just a large shareholder but with no sway or say

[phantom_power]

He might be directly named on the patent, as he worked with Peter at the time

[hewantstolurkatad]

I really get the impression that Richard's decentralised network will prove successful just by the way it was played down. Also where's the female characters this year?

The thing is, it being successful is a totally different kind of successful. You're talking about fringe outliers making it by on people's donations or regular jobs. It's pretty hard to buy Dinesh seeing any interest in that, and it's hard to justify Jared having a role...
It's a good way of diverging the show and is a better fit for Richard at this stage (whose ideology never really fit that well with the "get rich quick" nature of what they're riffing on), but the others need some other project going on with legs and Jian Jang's octopus meal app is a better fit than Shazam for food.


They seemed to pretty deliberately phrase it that Gavin Belson had the patent privately, a twist there would be pretty cheap. I could see him agreeing to do something with Richard as a means of revenge on Hooli (whose whole platform presumably relies on pulling user data).

[momatt]

Fans of Jian Yang will love the new episode.
Everything about the See Food app is hilarious to me.  Under what circumstances would you want or need your phone to identify food?!

[BritishHobo]

HBO have put up the Not Hotdog app on the Apple store, with a lovely Jian Yang-penned description - 'What would you say if I told you there is a app on the market that tell you if you have a hotdog or not a hotdog. It is very good and I don't want to work on it any more.'

[momatt]

Oh wow, that is beautiful.
Fuck them for it not being on Android though.  I wanted to take pictures of my junk between some bread and see if it could tell.

Jerry's balloon game (from Rick & Morty) being a real app is a lovely touch I always thought.  A similar sort of reality-bending there.

[olliebean]

HBO have put up the Not Hotdog app on the Apple store, with a lovely Jian Yang-penned description - 'What would you say if I told you there is a app on the market that tell you if you have a hotdog or not a hotdog. It is very good and I don't want to work on it any more.'

Can't find it. Is it US only?

[notjosh]

They way the Not Hotdog storyline developed was brilliant. I think this show might have the best plot construction of any comedy I've ever watched. It's not just that they're compelling and unpredictable plots that also happen to be funny, but the twists and new developments are actually driven by great jokes - Not Hotdog, middle-out compression (those are both dick-based but you get the point).

[Dr Funke]

Can't find it. Is it US only?

Yes, unfortunately.

[amnesiac]

some extra Jian-Yang Seefood content here:

https://twitter.com/TechAtBloomberg/status/863944535419666432?s=03

really not FAIR it's US only. and IOS only. SUCKS

[Bobloblawslawbomb]

They way the Not Hotdog storyline developed was brilliant. I think this show might have the best plot construction of any comedy I've ever watched. It's not just that they're compelling and unpredictable plots that also happen to be funny, but the twists and new developments are actually driven by great jokes - Not Hotdog, middle-out compression (those are both dick-based but you get the point).

Agreed. I can never second guess this show in terms of where the plot is heading. The 'not hot dog' reveal made me laugh more than anything this year.

[funtimefrankie]

This weeks felt a bit filler. I only watched it yesterday and I can't really remember much plot development.

[Old Gold Tooth]

The foot was definitely off the accelerator this week compared to the first four eps but I still really enjoyed it.

Wasn't really engaged with the blood boy storyline as it felt a bit Season 1 in terms of how Richard handled it.

Gilfoyle's O**** B** F*****' remark to Dinesh had me cracking up. Best insults out of any comedy on the air right now.

[hewantstolurkatad]

Have to say, that episode's hitting of the reset button absolutely infuriated me, threw away a story that not only had plenty of mileage left, but had barely even started. It's all trapped in an endless loop and they've no clue how to break it.

That being said, for basically their sole episode as collaborators, was blood boy really the best they could come up with?

[Twed]

Was definitely the weakest episode of season 4 so far.

[BritishHobo]

Yeah, the Fortunately Unfortunately structure of this show gets ridiculous sometimes. They rattle through a season's worth of plot every other episode. Case in point: Dinesh getting stuck in the year-long contract last week and just quitting this week to rejoin the team.

[Old Gold Tooth]

This is the first plot swerve that felt a bit too sudden for me. But as everything else this series has been gold, I have faith they know where they're going with it.

Only other downside  this week was the absence of Bighead! Suppose Harvard would keep you busy. (They let you have homework if you want it.)

[phantom_power]

I like the hard resetting it does. It makes the show unpredictable, despite the predictability of the actual reset. What will happen next? Who knows

[up_the_hampipe]

Yeah weird episode that unnecessary put the brakes on some good stories. But I did laugh at Dinesh's GF hacking into the elevators at the freedom tower.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I like the hard resetting it does. It makes the show unpredictable, despite the predictability of the actual reset. What will happen next? Who knows

I do as well but I would like to see them achieve real success at some point, to launch a product which is successful, just to see how much that changes them.

I thought Richard and Dinesh were particularly dickish in this episode, even though he lied Blood Boy made a strong argument as to why he shouldn't have been treated by Richard in such a cuntish way, and Dinesh basically sentencing his girlfriend to fuck knows how long in prison,which must be the most cuntish thing anyone's done in the entire series.

There's an interesting list of 'computer criminals' on wiki which includes their various jail terms - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computer_criminals - by christ, you do not want to be a hacker in China.

[up_the_hampipe]

That was out of character over the top cuntishness from Dinesh. It was a bit Always Sunny. I'm assuming it will come back to haunt him.

[phantom_power]

Dinesh has always been weak and selfish though. He just hasn't had the chance to fuck someone over with it before

[hewantstolurkatad]

Due to Dinesh doing that, something'll come back on him that'll cause him grave public embarrassment but somehow it'll have a side effect of granting Pied Piper some gigantic opportunity which they'll run with for an episode and a half until some oversight leads to them back at square one.


It definitely wasn't as bad for all of this resetting in previous seasons, it's sped up dramatically and that's usually a sign of a show that's in some manner running on fumes. There's been a serious lack of good character moments this season (w/e of the two guys battling for Gavin Belson's trust against action jack), it's just burning way too fast to have any texture to the characters at all. Tonally  Richard was pretty weird in that episode, Guilfoyle is a total nonentity this season in a way I can't even figure out, and, yeah, the Dinesh bit was very Always Sunny.

[momatt]

Was definitely the weakest episode of season 4 so far.

I disagree!

I really enjoyed this episode.  But the resetting is getting a bit silly now, to the point it's difficult keeping up.  Just when you're invested in a plotline and excited to see where it's going, it's killed stone dead.  It's as if they've got too many ideas, which isn't so bad I suppose.
But I feel like they now spend too much time on messing about with plots and not enough on jokes and funny character stuff.  For instance I'd love to see more of Dinesh being terrified by his girlfriend.

Did anyone else spot the CRAY 2 supercomputer in Gavin Belson's 'garage'?  Great little geeky touch.  I loved that opening shot with all the cool mad stuff just sitting there.  I had to pause it and take it all in.
Later on there were some good little gags on the whiteboard.  Like proposing John Kricfalusi to do their explanation video.  As he'd be the perfect man if you were in a hurry to launch something.

I also love that Laurie Bream is having her fourth child and considers Monica to be her best friend.  Great silly little moment.

Gilfoyle's O**** B** F*****' remark to Dinesh had me cracking up. Best insults out of any comedy on the air right now.

What was this line?  It's bugging me!
Gilfoyle always has the best lines though.

[Old Gold Tooth]

What was this line?  It's bugging me!
Gilfoyle always has the best lines though.

It was when Gilfoyle looked up from his cereal and said, "Oh hey, it's Osama Bin Fuckin'". Just Gilfoyle's casual delivery and the fact Dinesh is completely used to it by now made me crack right up. (Sorry, over-spoilered it in case people hadn't seen. Bit much in retrospect)