By Jake Navarro ’20

Beginning its premiere on March 25, “Silicon Valley’s” fifth season has just finished. Directors Mike Judge and Alec Berg have been able to set up the season for a fantastic finish to their current season.

For those who don’t know the show “Silicon Valley”, it is a comedy that is based on Mike Judge’s experiences as a programmer, following the experiences of a new company looking to create a high tech gold rush. Silicon Valley’s main character is Richard Hendricks, the CEO who is played by Thomas Middleditch. Alongside him are the two senior managers at the company who are Dinesh (played by Kumail Nanjiani) and Gilfoyle (played by Martin Starr). The last and my personal favorite character is the Chief Operating Officer Jared Dunn, who is played by Zach Woods. In the fifth season the main goal of the show was to demonstrate the development of the decentralized internet due to the efforts of Richard Hendricks and Pied Piper.

Throughout season five, we have seen many complications which all add a comical touch to the storyline. In one of the first episodes, the programmers attempt to find an office space. This results in numerous fights that made me laugh non-stop. Another funny development to this season of the show was the tension between Dinesh and Gilfoyle. Dinesh and Gilfoyle always had tension since the start of the show due to their competitive personalities towards programming, but this season their fights were even more nonsensical and hilarious.

Although, there are a lot of comedic additions in this show, there were a few downsides which holds the season back from reaching its true potential. One of my favorite parts of watching this show was Erlich Bachman. However, Backman was not cast in the fifth season of Silicon Valley because he went on a personal stand up comedy tour. Without Backman’s loud and obnoxious personality there was a large part of the show missing, making me feel like they needed an addition to fill in that gap.

Overall, I would give this season an 8 out of 10 due to there lack of adding in another character similar to Backman. This definitely made the show feel as if there was a lack of personality that needed to be filled in.