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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Silicon Valley Season 2 (Blu-ray) (2015)

Silicon Valley Season 2 (Blu-ray) (2015)

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Released 20-Apr-2016

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category TV COMEDY SERIES Audio Commentary-Cast and Crew - 5 Episodes
Featurette-Making Of-Reality Bytes
Deleted Scenes-TechCrunch:Disrupt
Rating Rated MA
Year Of Production 2015
Running Time 281:00
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered
Dual Disc Set
Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By Mike Judge
Alec Berg
Studio
Distributor

Roadshow Home Entertainment
Starring Thomas Middleditch
Matt Ross
T.J. Miller
Kumail Nanjiani
Martin Starr
Josh Brener
Chris Diamantopoulos
Amanda Crew
Zach Woods
Suzanne Cryer
Case Standard Blu-ray
RPI ? Music None Given


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1
French dts 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Spanish dts 2.0 (768Kb/s)
Spanish
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 1080p
Original Aspect Ratio 1.78:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English for the Hearing Impaired
French
Spanish
Danish
Finnish
Norwegian
Swedish
Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

   

When last we saw the boys from Pied Piper they were celebrating an amazing success. After a long night of the soul Richard (Thomas Middleditch) came up with a compression algorithm which wowed the crowd at TechCrunch Disrupt, whilst the rest of the team were still working out a complex series of calculations determining how to pleasure every man in the auditorium - well, you had to see it.

As Season 2 of Silicon Valley gets underway the Pied Piper crew other toast of the town, fielding offers from investors left right and centre. Of course, nothing ever goes to plan… The team gets hit with a double whammy. Their core investor, Peter Gregory has died. Rival tech magnate Richard Belson(Matt Ross) is on the war path and hits Pied Piper with an enormous lawsuit alleging Richard created Pied Piper whilst working at Hooli. Suddenly, all the adoring suitors get cold feet and the team have to settle for a rogue outsider Russ Hanneman (Chris Diamontopoulos). As the court date to determine the lawsuit approaches the tensions within the group become manifest. Will they make it to the finish line?

The first season of Silicon Valley was extremely funny. Season 2 follows that great tradition. Firstly, however, the elephant in the room. Christopher Evan Welch, who played Peter Gregory, died during the making of Season 1. Since his character was a main pivot point for the show the writers had to work out how to deal with his death. In the commentary track for the first episode creator Mike Judge talks at length about the approach to the difficult problem. The team worked closely with Peter's family who insisted that whatever happened Peter would want his demise to be funny. The death is treated in an amusing yet ultimately respectful manner.

Season 2 brings in some new elements and characters. In the absence of Peter Gregory, Suzanne Cryer comes in as Laurie Bream, the new CEO of Gregory's company. She brings business acumen to the role but continues Peter's oddity. Chris Diamontopoulos comes in as Russ Hanneman who is, there is no way getting around, a narcissistic douche bag. Fans of the TV series Episodes will recognise him as Castor Sotto, a similarly self-centred rage inducing character. Finally, in one of the funniest scenes of the series the Pied Piper crew introduce a female coder into the team. Alice Wetterlund plays the punky Carla to a tee. Finally there is Matt McCoy as Pete Monahan a disgraced former lawyer who acts as the Pied Piper attorney at the binding arbitration hearing.

Fans of the first season will enjoy the second just as much. The familiar tropes are there - Richard is still impossibly nervous and bumbling, Erlich is annoyingly wrongheaded and the sparring partners of Dinesh and Gilfoyle continue to trade blows. All the while the well meaning Jared tries to keep it all together.

Don't wish to see plot synopses in the future? Change your configuration.

Transfer Quality

Video

Silicon Valley was shot on high-definition digital video. It comes to Blu-ray in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio consistent with the original television widescreen presentation.

The first season was presented in a clear and crisp fashion and this continues the tradition.

Flesh tones are accurate and the general look of the show is excellent.

There are subtitles in English for the hearing impaired as well as a stack of European language subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

   

The Silicon Valley Season 2 Blu-ray contains a DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track. There are DTS French and Spanish tracks too.

This is perhaps more than is required for this show however it is a quality track throughout.

Dialogue is clear and easy to understand. The surrounds are not used a great deal and I do not recall the sub woofer becoming engaged.

The opening theme has not changed since Season 1.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

There are some decent extras included with this Blu-ray.

Audio Commentaries

There are several audio commentaries provided with this Blu-ray and they are always worth a listen. Whilst there is some useful information regarding filmmaking techniques and ideas throughout generally it is usually just a chance for the creator Mike Judge(who appears on the majority) and a variety of the actors/writers to get together and chuck jokes around whilst watching the episode.

Deleted Scenes

Each disc contains a number of deleted scenes. Far from being unnecessary these are actually quite entertaining and would have been a welcome addition in the episodes. No doubt they were cut for time. A particular favourite is the stand-off between the Pied Piper crew and the other tech guys who stole their ideas. Another great scene is where Richard and Erlich accompany their attorney into the binding arbitration only to see that Richard Belson has engaged a ridiculously large team of lawyers to represent Hooli.

Reality Bytes

This is a great little extra. It examines the amount of effort that goes into making the tech language believable even where they have been forced to create fake programs. Funnily enough, it was actually cheaper to build the Pied Piper servers using genuine tech rather than to create fake servers.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

  The versions are the same. Buy local.

Summary

For fans of Silicon Valley this is an essential purchase. The Blu-ray is good quality with some decent extras. Now that Season 3 has started on Foxtel it will be interesting to see where the story goes.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Trevor Darge (read my bio)
Wednesday, June 08, 2016
Review Equipment
DVDCambridge Audio 752BD All Region Blu-ray, using HDMI output
DisplayJVC DLX 700 with 4K e-shift on 140" Screen. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum.
AmplificationPioneer SC -LX 78K 9.2 Channel
SpeakersAaron ATS-5 7.1

Other Reviews NONE