One of the funniest panels this year came from the cast of Silicon Valley. The presenters included, Executive producer Alec Berg, Executive Producer Mike Judge, Josh Brener, Martin Starr, Thomas Middleditch, and Zach Woods. The panel was moderated by filmmaker Steven Leckart.
Silicon Valley airs on HBO and revolves around a group of individuals attempting to make a name for themselves and become successful in the start-up world. The series is partially inspired by Mike Judge’s own experiences as an engineer in the ’80s.
A series like this fits awfully well in a festival where every corner has a start-up marketing a new tech item. In fact, during the panel they discuss despite the
Before the panel, a extended preview of season three aired for the audience in attendance. If you are a fan of the show, I would like to mention that it looks amazing! I’m sure the footage will be revealed online shortly.
Alec Berg discussed the challenges of continuously providing new obstacles in the story every season. If the group were to become successful or finally hit it big, fans may become disinterested.
“That is the challenge of writing the show. We always looked at them as sort of the Bad News Bears or like Delta House where they are constantly the outsiders trying to crack the big machine and get a win. I do think once these guys are the guys with all the money and success, the show sort of ends. The challenge of doing it year after year is how many different interesting ways can we get these to trip up without infuriating the audience and having it be like Lucy and the football or eventually people go ‘Fuck it’.”
Middleditch depicted what it’s like on set, “They built us a room, like a private room with video games and stuff. When they are setting up or working, they’re like ‘Just go and play FIFA, you idiots.’ ”
Woods jokingly added, “So we have somehow become worse than the people we are parodying.”
For a chunk of the panel, weirdly, it felt like the moderator took a step back from his duties. Middleditch even comments on this. Luckily the cast is so hysterical, they just banter and improv bout the most random things for a couple of minutes. “So this was the plan to have it sort of peter out? It have it just sort of end quietly and have us sort of like fuckin’ try to keep it going on our end? Zack, what did you have for breakfast?” Each of these members in the panel are talented and hysterical, I would have been just as pleased watching an entire panel of solid improv from them.
For those unable to attend, no worries, SXSW has you covered. Check out the full panel below:
HBO has recently released a trailer for Season 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmqGH9qOszM