Inside the Incubator – Silicon Valley is satire, but feels like a documentary.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2014/04/mike_judge_hbo_series_silicon_valley_reviewed.html

by edw519 • 12 years ago

84 47 12 years ago

This wont be seen by the target audience, as this requires cable.

There's this new thing called Roku, Amazon TV, Apple TV and such, it just came out, check it out. Even tablets or touch chrome-books ($300), let you watch it while commuting. You know, internet will be big some day. /s

untog• 12 years ago

You sound like a character in the show.

danso• 12 years ago

I know we're not supposed to upvote snark...but...zing!

As revolutionary as the Internet and video streaming has been...yeah, I don't think HBO is soliciting advice on how to survive the current disruption in the content production and distribution business

woah• 12 years ago

Everyone on here does!

astral303• 12 years ago

The target audience will be torrenting it anyway.

placeybordeaux• 12 years ago

You mean the same people that will rave about The Wire and Game of Thrones?

dublinben• 12 years ago

Game of Thrones?

You mean the most pirated show of 2012 and 2013?

timdiggerm• 12 years ago

Is the target audience the people involved in the industry?

chippy2• 12 years ago

The Office wasn't targeted towards people in the paper sales industries - but I'd imagine the target audience to be the same.

ryanSrich2• 12 years ago

Oh I'll be watching it. Just not on HBO.

jpwright• 12 years ago

You can watch HBO on any computer/tablet/smartphone plus Roku and Apple TV using HBO Go. (I hate to sound like an advertisement here. I'm not a customer of HBO Go, but it's worth noting that they were actually one of the fastest cable TV companies to put their content online.)

wpietri2• 12 years ago

Last I checked that was only true for HBO subscribers, which you can only get through cable systems. So their content isn't online in the sense that puppetmaster3 means.

robg2• 12 years ago

I am a HBO customer. And GO makes it that convenient.

Eff them for giving an easy way to pay for great content?

Game of Thrones is worth the price alone. Most of their library is available on-demand. And they've transitioned to where Netflix wants to be...in ten years.

I don't see much of a problem.

aidos• 12 years ago

"HBO GO. It's HBO. Anywhere."

Well, you know, except in most of the world. It's a shame because I'd love to pay for HBO in the UK.

http://www.hbogo.com/geo.html

beachstartup2• 12 years ago

you are begging the question of who the target audience is.

beachstartup2• 12 years ago

you are begging the question of who the target audience is.

hint: it's not you.

dylandrop• 12 years ago

If by "target audience" you mean "young people", Girls and Game of Thrones (which are also HBO) both seem to be doing just fine. If instead you mean techies... well, I don't think the target audience of this show is purely people in Silicon Valley. HBO is doing just fine, even with the advent of the internet.

sp3323• 12 years ago

HBO Go is on Roku, Xbox, etc. I'm not sure I know anyone who watches an HBO channel.

OlivierLi• 12 years ago

I will be checking this out for sure but I really hope they get the tech terms right.

It's going to be hard to stand if they do the usual technobabble.

They could win major points with their target audience simply by namedropping Vim or BSD.

ojbyrne• 12 years ago

I think that's a pretty low bar. Hopefully they'll do more than that, and from the previews it seems obvious they will.

tomhallett• 12 years ago

Mike Judge and his co-creator were doing some research for the show about 2 years ago, and stopped by our office in SOMA (San Francisco). We were telling them about open source, meet ups, editors, and stuff like that. Here are some clips of it:

Here's him asking about ruby: http://www.tout.com/m/t0x6dh judge drawing on one of our desks: http://www.tout.com/m/q8ppc1 here's the full stream: http://www.tout.com/hashtags/MikeJudgeToutHQ

GBond• 12 years ago

Does Mike Judge and his co-creator visit HN for research as well? He would get tons of material.

eropple2• 12 years ago

Their "target audience" isn't you or anyone else who is worried about the technical terminology in a comedy show.

(It's not me, either, but I've seen this show live and don't need to see it again.)

jaegerpicker• 12 years ago

I'm a fan of Judge's so I've been watching the hbo previews and In a couple of the making of's type previews they really stress the number of consultants and research they have done to get it right. I hope they do because if not that will kill it for me.

chippy2• 12 years ago

I hope they have a laugh track.

Cthulhu_• 12 years ago

Sometimes the only thing differentiating a documentary from a comedy.

Although a comedy without laugh track easily turns into a show with long, awkward silences.

yesiamyourdad• 12 years ago

That seems appropriate, since Judge did "Office Space", the finest documentary ever made about the tech industry.

mindslight• 12 years ago

And don't forget "Idiocracy", the finest documentary ever made about SoCal.

jesbickhart• 12 years ago

If anyone wants to read the pilot: http://www.fileswap.com/dl/wQwDwVML9f/

Honestly wasn't a fan at all. Felt very contrived and inorganic. Would have been a bigger fan of a more serious take on the subject matter.

stackcollision• 12 years ago

Would have been a bigger fan of a more serious take on the subject matter.

But...it's a comedy. Isn't the point of a comedy to take a not serious approach to things?

coffeecodecouch• 12 years ago

The comments in this thread are the exact reason why this show will be hilarious.

chiph2• 12 years ago

Please say it's better than Betas. I only lasted 10 minutes into that one.

tlrobinson• 12 years ago

Well, it's got to be better than Amazon's "Betas", right?

gre• 12 years ago

I saw the first two episodes at SXSW and it's hilarious.

chiph2• 12 years ago

HBO has made it available on Youtube until the 28th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvkmsI54ss4

Having just watched it, I take back my earlier skepticism -- it's eminently watchable.

Inside the Incubator – Silicon Valley is satire, but feels like a documentary.

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