In the Mood for Laughs, And Getting Them

As a “Game of Thrones” fan, I was glued to my television on Sunday for the première of the fourth season. It was superb, as I expected.Immediately following that dramatic episode, a new comedy debuted on HBO titled, “Silicon Valley.” I was in the mood for a laugh after all of the “Game of Thrones” murder and mayhem, so I decided to give it a shot. I’m glad I did, because it’s a hilarious look at the technology-centric culture of northern California.The show is the brainchild of Mike Judge, who’s known for cartoons such as “Beavis & Butthead” and “King of the Hill,” and the movies “Office Space” and “Idiocracy.”“Silicon Valley” is to the tech world what “Office Space” was to cubicle life. If you still wear at least 15 pieces of flair and have a red Swingline stapler on your desk — and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, I highly recommend you watch “Office Space” immediately — then I bet you’ll enjoy “Silicon Valley.”The show focuses on Richard Hendrix, a nervous, awkward programmer portrayed by Thomas Middleditch. Richard works at Hooli — a not-so-subtle jab at Google. Like all tech giants, Hooli’s all about innovation. The office looks like a colorful playground, complete with bicycle meetings. As the name suggests, employees use a massive, multi-seat bicycle to zip around the campus and chat about ... well, whatever it is programmers chat about.Richard lives with a group of tech-minded people in an “incubator” owned by Erlich (T. J. Miller). Instead of charging rent, Erlich wants 10 percent of his tenants’ creations. This colorful cast of characters includes Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani, who shines in all of his sketches on “Portlandia”), Gilfoyle (Martin Starr, of “Freaks and Geeks” fame) and Big Head (Josh Brener, who has appeared on the “Big Bang Theory”).That “incubator” rental agreement shows that the applications these programmers are developing may as well be lottery tickets — create the right thing at the right time, and you could become rich overnight. Just look in the news at Facebook’s recent purchases of Oculus VR for $2 billion and WhatsApp for $19 billion, and it’s clear that this comedy is based in reality.Richard’s working on a site called Pied Piper, which is basically a search engine for music. When it’s discovered that the site has some impressive functions that could be utilized in other programs, Richard finds himself in the middle of a “Shark Tank”-style bidding war between Hooli founder Gavin Belson (Matt Ross) and venture capitalist Peter Gregory (Christopher Evan Welch, who died in December from lung cancer).What would you do if you were suddenly offered millions of dollars for your creation? Would you take a buyout, or would you prefer to retain control of your company? That’s the panic-attack-inducing question that Richard faces in “Silicon Valley,” and I’ll definitely be tuning in this season to see what happens.“Silicon Valley” airs on HBO Sundays at 10 p.m.The first episode is available for free on YouTube: .