Silicon Valley Review

Judge and Berg got the details right, which is exactly why the satire cuts. The show understands term sheets, valuation dilution, non-competes and the specific humiliation of a demo that works everywhere except on stage, so the jokes land on people who have lived it and on people who have not. The dialogue is the best thing here: Gilfoyle and Dinesh's mutual contempt refined over six seasons, Erlich's baroque self-regard, Russ Hanneman's three-comma club, and a whiteboard sequence that derives an entire business model from manual efficiency with total mathematical commitment.

T. J. Miller, Martin Starr, Kumail Nanjiani and Zach Woods all start from types and all find a third dimension, while Thomas Middleditch makes Richard a genuinely uncomfortable protagonist, anxious and quietly ruthless. The plotting repeats its shape, since Pied Piper must nearly die and nearly triumph every year, and it looks like any other single-camera comedy. The final season loses some charge once Erlich leaves. As a joke delivery system and a satire, close to unbeatable.