Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Silicon Valley: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Compression issues.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 18, 2016

There comes a time in virtually every parent’s life when he or she is suddenly gobsmacked to hear themselves channeling either their own parents or perhaps even their grandparents as they inform their children of the changes that have occurred over the course of their lifetimes. Like most kids, I used to roll my eyes when my folks or (especially) my grandmother would regale with me stories of ancient history like the lack of indoor plumbing or the advent of automatic transmissions. Who cares, right? It’s what’s happening now that matters! Well, lo and behold, maybe it is, but at least for those of us who grew up in an era that predated the rise of the personal computer, internet and other high tech accoutrements of modern life, there's still a sense of wonder that things have changed so much in a relatively short amount of time. I still have regular bantering sessions (i.e., I begin channeling my parents) with both of my sons, neither of whom could get to any given destination without the aid of Google Maps, or whose answer to any “how do I [fill in the blank]?” query is to (of course) look up relevant information on the internet. It’s a strange new world, at least for us older curmudgeons who look around at the unbelievable wizardry that our kids have been raised with, all of which either makes them the most advanced generation the planet has ever seen, or maybe (just maybe) the most dependent on questionable technology. That technology has at least afforded Gen-Xers and Millennials the ability to reap some significant rewards (my own college aged coding son has already raked in significant moolah working as a paid intern at one of the nation’s most successful app developers), an aspect that informs Silicon Valley’s often slyly cheeky humor. While certain elements of the series may strike some viewers—particularly curmudgeonly elders—as “inside baseball”, there’s an affable hangdog quality to many of the characters populating Mike Judge’s creation that may help to overcome resistance from those who frankly pine for the days of the manual typewriter, or at worst (best?) MS-DOS and/or Wang word processors.

(For those wanting to catch up on the wonky shenanigans of the story thus far, my colleague Ken Brown's assessment of the show's first year can be found in his Silicon Valley: The Complete First Season Blu-ray review.)

It’s perhaps a bit ironic for a reviewer who regularly has to confront video compression as a review aspect that Silicon Valley’s chief guru, Richard Hendricks (Thomas Middleditch), has at least the potential of grabbing the veritable brass ring due to a revolutionary data compression algorithm he almost unwittingly developed. The first season of Silicon Valley ended with what seemed to be an undeniable victory on the part of Hendricks and his gaggle of cohorts at TechCrunch Disrupt (the series regularly at least hints at the real life world of high tech, as in this element). The second season picks up in the aftermath of this perhaps unexpected triumph, with Hendricks and the other guys being wined and dined to their hearts’ content by those vying for the opportunity to fund Hendricks’ Pied Piper concern.

The kind of “nerd chic” (if I may be permitted to purloin a term) that has made shows like The Big Bang Theory mainstays of the broadcast television universe also informs Silicon Valley, and one of the more prevalent tropes is how Hendricks and his team seem to be able to almost magically snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The first couple of episodes of the second season detail their misadventures as they pitch their so- called Series A Round to prospective venture capital firms. There’s some wonderfully snarky humor at play here as Erlich Bachman (T.J. Miller) develops his own kind of “algorithm” where he sees a direct correlation between how rude he is at the pitch meetings and how much capital Pied Piper is then offered by the prospective investors (i.e., the more abhorrent Bachman's behavior is, the more money the guys get offered).

Of course things don’t work out the way the guys expect, and not merely due to Erlich’s seemingly savant level abilities to offend prospective backers. Instead, an unexpected tragedy at Raviga (necessitated by the sad death of actor Christopher Evan Welch) throws everything (and everyone) into disarray. Raviga’s new head honcho Laurie Bream (Suzanne Cryer) has near Asperger levels of social awkwardness, something that makes several brief scenes with her both horrifyingly uneasy as well as undeniably hilarious. Even more chaos ensues when a lawsuit threatens to bring down the entire Pied Piper enterprise before it ever really gets off the runway.

A number of perhaps slightly less felicitous personal subplots enter the fray at various times, including a couple of relatively fertile arcs for the wonderful Kumail Nanjiani as Dinesh. But it’s the work related material that provides the most consistent comedic fodder in Silicon Valley, and the Pied Piper team continues to prove that people can be incredibly smart and still do incredibly stupid things. There’s a bit of a repetitive roller ambience this season, with Pied Piper almost getting to the vaunted happily ever after, only to have some obstacle intervene. Some probably over manufactured conflict brings the second season to a close with a quasi-cliffhanger, but there’s little doubt that Richard and his hapless team will be back to fight (and/or code) another day.

Silicon Valley: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Silicon Valley: The Complete Second Season is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. I'm not quite as enamored of the look of this series as Ken was with regard to the first season, which is not to suggest that there's anything wrong with this year's presentation. The imagery here is consistently sharp and well defined, with fine detail on textures like the series of sweaters that Richard wears typically very well resolved. As Ken mentioned in his review of the first season, there are once again occasional issues with murk if not outright crush in a number of dimly lit or dark scenes, but there are no outright artifacts marring the imagery. This is a series which "delights" in the very ordinary (despite the extraordinary talents of the programmers), and that tends to keep the visuals here decidedly on the mundane side of things a lot of the time. The high definition presentation is excellent, but it's simply not the sort of material that most viewers are going to utilize to impress their friends with a "wow" viewing experience.

Silicon Valley: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Again, as with the video assessment, I'm perhaps a bit more reserved in my appreciation of Silicon Valley's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix than Ken was with regard to the first season. While there's decent immersion here, especially when there are noisy environments where directionality come into play, for the most part long swaths of this series play out in relatively tamer dialogue scenes where only incremental uses of things like ambient environmental sounds engage the side and rear channels. Fidelity is top notch and there are no problems of any kind to report on this enjoyable track.

Silicon Valley: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 7:47) features scenes from Episodes 1, 2 and 3.


• Audio Commentaries

  Episode 1 "Sand Hill Shuffle" with Thomas Middleditch (Richard), Amanda Crew (Monica), Kumail Nanjiani (Dinesh), Martin Starr (Gilfoyle) and Mike Judge (Creator/Executive Producer/Director)

  Episode 2 "Runaway Devaluation" with Thomas Middleditch (Richard), Suzanne Cryer (Laurie), Kumail Nanjiani (Dinesh), T.J. Miller (Erlich) and Mike Judge (Creator/Executive Producer/Director)

  Episode 3 "Bad Money" with Thomas Middleditch (Richard), Chris Diamantopoulos (Russ), Zach Woods (Jared) and Alec Berg (Executive Producer/Director/Writer)

Disc Two

• Reality Bytes: The Art and Science Behind Silicon Valley (1080i; 3:08) is a brief aggregation of interviews.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 3:03) features scenes from Episodes 6, 8 and 9.


• Audio Commentaries

  Episode 8 "White Hat/Black Hat" with Thomas Middleditch (Richard), Chris Diamantopoulos (Russ), Zach Woods (Jared), Amanda Crew (Monica), Jimmy Yang (Jian-Yang) and Alec Berg (Executive Producer/Director/)

  Episode 9 "Binding Arbitration" with Matt McCoy (Pete), T.J. Miller (Erlich), Josh Brener (Big Head) and Mike Judge (Creator/Executive Producer/Director)

  Episode 10 "Two Days of the Condor" with Thomas Middleditch (Richard), Matt McCoy (Pete), Kumail Nanjiani (Dinesh), Martin Starr (Gilfoyle) and Alec Berg (Executive Producer/Director/Writer)

Silicon Valley: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's an undeniable lovability to at least some of the Pied Piper team, something that helps the series traverse maybe one (or more) too many manufactured crises this season. Performances continue to be spot on, and the writing is often impeccably smart, if also a bit high-falutin' for those "elders" who look with consternation at their iPhones, wondering how to answer the damn thing. The series has an incredible following amongst up and coming young programmers (at least as evidenced by reports from both of my computer savvy sons), and that popularity will probably ensure the continuing adventures of Richard and his cohorts for several years to come. Technical merits are strong, several of the commentaries are quite enjoyable, and Silicon Valley: The Complete Second Season comes Recommended.