Erlich Bachman, T. J. Miller' departure from Silicon Valley is undoubtedly a big loss for the show, but in the eyes of Hollywood Reporter Daniel Fienberg, it may be a great opportunity, and this article involves heavy spoilers, so watch carefully.
Some people think that the actor T · J. Miller's departure from Silicon Valley will somehow prevent the show from continuing, and in my opinion this view is untenable.
To put it another way, if Silicon Valley were confirmed to be in the T. It's really hard to sustain J. Miller after he leaves, and that's because the show's writers aren't good at it, not because T. Miller is not good at it. J. Miller's absence.
The Hollywood Reporter conducted a detailed interview with Miller, and during the interview, Miller broke the news continuously. He explained why he left the HBO comedy and said he had turned down an offer to return to a cameo midway through the fifth season. Reasons to leave, he said, included his busy schedule, his dissatisfaction with longtime producer Alec Berg and a clash with one of the show's lead actors, Thomas Middleditch, who said he was not just "the funniest guy" but a limelight-grabber.
Did Miller leave Silicon Valley because he wanted a more reasonable schedule? Or is it because he wants to promote The Emoji Movie? Is it because he feels that his space to play in the play is limited and the role function is limited? Or is it because he's a weird and unpredictable person in his own right?
We don't know that. The Hollywood Reporter interview about Miller's exit reads at least 75 percent of the way to actual behavior, but nothing more credible than his praise for the show's actors, Zack Woods, Martin Starr and Kumail Nanjiani. If Miller wasn't joking, the whole interview would look like a guy playing high and starting to make a fool of himself, and even praised the movie "Yoga Bear."
As soon as the news of Miller's departure was announced, many people on Twitter said "Oh my God! ", think that "Silicon Valley" without Miller certainly can not be filmed.
In my opinion, this fear is based on the following two aspects:
First, if Erik Bachmann is indispensable to the development of the plot of "Silicon Valley", then his departure is likely to cause difficulties for the subsequent plot development. But this is clearly not true. At the beginning of the show, Richard, played by Midticch, lives in Bachmann's startup incubator, and Bachmann's role in driving the plot forward is not significant. However, in the past three seasons, the show has constantly adjusted its plot in order to balance Bachmann's role. Because he wanted to maintain Bachmann's hilarious character image in the play, he had to do so. But for Pied Piper (the data management and storage device that engineers in Silicon Valley are trying to develop), no matter what stage it's in right now, it doesn't need Erik Bachman anymore. His inability to contribute technology or provide administrative functions, coupled with the fact that Silicon Valley in reality has a steady stream of money, Bachmann has little use.
Second, if Miller is the only actor in the show who can provide jokes, then his departure will make the "Silicon Valley" comedy lose all its laughs. But if you really believe that, why are you still watching the show? If Jared's eccentric insanity, or Dinissie and Gilfjord's arguments, don't make you laugh, you can get yourself laughed out loud by finding a miller's five-minute stand-up comedy on YouTube every Sunday. Miller's praise for Nanjani, Starr, and Midtic is entirely correct. Although Richard's characterization in season four is so intriguing that his role is difficult to amuse audiences, the show's supporting characters are basically full of laughs, such as Josh Brener, Matt Ross, Jimmy Ross, and Jimmy Lee. O. Young (Jimmy O· Yang), Stephen Tobolowsky and Chris Diamantopoulos, among others. Therefore, Miller is not the only funny person in "Silicon Valley", he is just one of the many funny characters in this show.
So let's forget the idea that "Silicon Valley can't live without Miller." At present, however, "Silicon Valley" does face unsustainable problems, but not because of Miller's departure.
"Silicon Valley" needs to constantly integrate Bachmann's story into the plot development. This may not be a problem with the show itself, but it seems to me that the problem has become more and more apparent in the fourth season — Bachmann's narrative line has become increasingly rigid.
"Silicon Valley" is too timid to push the plot in any direction, resulting in the show has now fallen into a serious large-loop narrative convention. It's not a small loop, because jokes are jokes, and the show is still one of the funniest TV series. In Miller's exit interview, he was both full of praise for the show and at the same time expressed his dissatisfaction with the show's repetitive cyclical narrative: "These guys [in 'Silicon Valley]) are always dramatically defeated on the verge of great success, followed by a Jedi rebirth, but soon they fall into the mud." "You can barely ignore the repetition and looping of the show, but it wasn't until I watched the fourth season that the cyclical narrative began to feel uncomfortable.
In "Silicon Valley", a series that focuses on describing technological innovation, major technological breakthroughs have basically become McGuffin (film term, referring to the objects and characters that can be deduced in the film). Richard's decentralized network plan was originally just an excuse to keep Gavin in the story. Later, this plan was used to promote Richard's blackening, and eventually, the plot culminated when Richard implanted malware into a mutually beneficial phone, and Richard temporarily lost Jared's faith and confidence. Bachman's storyline in this season is mostly about saying "Palapa" incessantly and playing the good friend of the strong bearded Kenan (Harry Joe Osmon). There are a lot of places in this show that make me laugh and cry, but my attention to any story line can be ignored. Season four no longer makes me care if Richard succeeds, an experience that hasn't been seen in the previous three seasons, and I hope that's temporary.
On the surface, losing Bachmann doesn't solve anything. It only cost the show a few laughs, and on the surface it's a shame. But the show doesn't lose three minutes just because Bachmann no longer says "Palapa." This change also pushes for an opportunity — one that Silicon Valley absolutely can't screw up.
After the untimely death of actor Christopher Evan Welch, the show had to let the character of Peter Gregory also die, and the writers handled the matter very well in some ways. They commemorate the passing of the character and mention him again from time to time in the play, without doing anything to weaken the character's sense of existence. However, they did not replace his character function well in the narrative framework.
Laurie Brim (Susan Claire) has never been able to be portrayed as a major character in the show. In the play, the introduction to her quirks is the same as Gregory's, and the show fails to look at the situation of working women in the tech industry in a meaningful way. The writers always kept laurie's character away from the main storyline, and kept the character of Monica (Amanda Crewe) tied to Laurie, with the result that both female characters became increasingly marginalized. The characters of Monica and Laurie can completely disappear from the story, and the whole show will not have any loss, but there are only two important female representatives in the field of technology, and their roles may only be a little more significant than the girlfriend role. Although Bachmann is related to monica and Laurie's storyline, this connection is also a relationship of money, and erasing all three characters from the play will give the show a chance to start over and lay out. But if the show had kept these three ghost characters at the start of the show, it would have been a mistake.
That's part of the reason I think it would be a big mistake to just make Ross Hanneman, played by Chris Dimantoporos, into a resident character. Ross is really great, and if the writers were to make him a more important character in season five, then I would have no problem at all, but expanding the puzzle in front of you will only give birth to more repetitive loops.
What "Silicon Valley" needs is new voices and new vitality, and these can all start by solving the show's general direction and other different problems that have always existed. "Silicon Valley" is about to enter its fifth season, and it has not yet appeared as a female character who is indispensable to the main storyline, which is absurd. This is not a nitpick, no matter how men are in the real world, how to control everything, but in the play, it is strange to pretend that these technical houses have not been able to find an independent female partner to join.
I don't think the show will be able to reconnect Laurie and Monica to the main storyline, so it's quite possible that it's time for the show to start over and get ready to introduce a strong female character for the next season. This character should run through the next 10 episodes and interact with all the characters to really contribute to the development of the storyline. And I don't think there's any need to dwell on "what would a female Bachmann look like?" Because "Peter Gregory of a Woman" has proven to be a very limited character. It's not "add a female character," it's "you guys have to add a new character, so why not add a character that's more useful than the poor, ineffective Monica?" ”
"Silicon Valley" should not replicate the relationship between Bachmann and Yang Jian. The screenwriter should turn Yang Jian into a truly hilarious character who does not need to appear at the same time as Bachman. The screenwriters have repeatedly claimed that there are not enough ideas to make Monica and Laurie valuable resident characters, and Yang Jian is different from them. The screenwriters put a lot of effort into the role of Yang Jian, and in order to make the character have a full backstory, they tried various methods, including different ideas and the actors' own ideas.
I don't know if the character of Yang Jian will be interesting with people other than Bachman, because the screenwriters have taken this as a convention and are deeply involved in it. If they don't have a new idea to connect Yang Jian with Pied Piper without Bachman, then the role should be eliminated and fresh blood added. But I prefer to see Yang Jian, who has a rich inner world, full of surprise and humanity, at this time he will no longer yell at Bachmann, or be ridiculed for his poor English, and secretly come up with useful applications.
Losing Miller was a real blow to Silicon Valley. If something like this happens again, it's not a joke. But all along, the show has tried its best to be "funny in the same way." Losing Miller could drive change in Silicon Valley, because it would force the writers to try new things, new characters, and push the story in different directions that Bachmann's presence in the past has held back. The show's screenwriters are excellent, some of them industry leaders, and if they can see Miller's departure as an opportunity to introduce new characters and new stories, then Miller's departure is a great opportunity for this show. Silicon Valley should be more diverse, more representative of its context, with its special perspective on the new things in the technology bubble.
Perhaps the screenwriter will make Ross Hannemann a resident character and turn Ross and Yang Jian into the new "Bachmann and Yang Jian" combination. Or maybe they didn't take the opportunity to absorb fresh blood, but instead continued to immerse Monica and Laurie in the hell of boredom, and made another season of the same Pied Piper "roller coaster" drama. It's also possible that they'll take my advice and introduce a new character—like a white male—that's going to be funny and brilliant. Who knows? But if the show never survives, it's not because they lost Miller, but because they lost their creativity.
Translator: Kong Shuyue