The third season of the American comedy television series ''

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

'' premiered in the United States on

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

on April 24, 2016. The season contained 10 episodes, and concluded on June 26, 2016. In the season, Richard once again becomes CEO of Pied Piper, after the excessive spending and questionable practices of Jack Barker, who briefly held the job. After leaving Pied Piper, Barker goes to work for Gavin Belson at Hooli. Erlich teams up with Big Head to create a new

incubator An incubator is anything that performs or facilitates various forms of incubation, and may refer to: Biology and medicine * Incubator (culture), a device used to grow and maintain microbiological cultures or cell cultures * Incubator (egg), a dev ...

, but the pairing quickly fails. Dinesh creates a video chat application within the Pied Piper platforms, which unexpectedly becomes popular.

Cast

Main

Thomas Middleditch Thomas Steven Middleditch (born March 10, 1982) is a Canadian actor. He is known for his role as Richard Hendricks in the HBO series ''Silicon Valley'' (2014–2019), earning a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in ...

as Richard Hendricks * T.J. Miller as Erlich Bachman *

Josh Brener Josh Brener (born October 1, 1984) is an American actor. He played the roles of Kyle on the IFC series ''Maron'', Nelson "Big Head" Bighetti on the HBO series ''Silicon Valley'', and Alan Zweibel in the film '' Saturday Night''. In animation, ...

as Nelson "Big Head" Bighetti *

Martin Starr Martin James Pflieger Schienle (born July 30, 1982), known professionally as Martin Starr, is an American actor. He is known for the television roles of Bill Haverchuck on the comedy drama '' Freaks and Geeks'' (1999–2000), Roman DeBeers on t ...

as Bertram Gilfoyle *

Kumail Nanjiani Kumail Ali Nanjiani (; ; Urdu: کمیل علی نانجیانی; born May 2, 1978) is a Pakistani-American stand-up comedian and actor. He is known for his role as Dinesh in the HBO comedy series ''Silicon Valley'' (2014–2019) and for co-writi ...

as Dinesh Chugtai *

Amanda Crew Amanda Crew (born June 5, 1986) is a Canadian actress. Following her film debut in '' Final Destination 3'' (2006), Crew had lead roles in films such as ''Sex Drive'' (2008), '' Charlie St. Cloud'', ''Repeaters'' (both 2010), '' Charlie Zone'' (20 ...

as Monica Hall *

Zach Woods Zach Woods (born September 25, 1984) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his roles as a series regular for three seasons as Gabe Lewis on the NBC sitcom '' The Office'', as Jared Dunn on the HBO comedy series ''Silicon Valley ...

as Donald "Jared" Dunn * Matt Ross as Gavin Belson *

Suzanne Cryer Suzanne Rossell Cryer (born January 13, 1967) is an American actress known for her roles as Ashley on the ABC sitcom '' Two Guys and a Girl'' and as Laurie Bream on the HBO original series ''Silicon Valley''. She featured in " The Yada Yada", a ...

as Laurie Bream * Jimmy O. Yang as Jian-Yang

Recurring

Episodes

Production

In April 2015, the series was renewed for a third season. In October 2015, it was reported that

Stephen Tobolowsky Stephen Harold Tobolowsky (born May 30, 1951) is an American character actor and writer. He is known for film roles such as insurance agent Ned Ryerson in ''Groundhog Day'' and amnesiac Sammy Jankis in '' Memento'', as well as such television ch ...

had been cast in the recurring role of Jack Barker.

Reception

Critical response

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, the season holds a 100% approval rating. It holds an average score of 8.8/10 based on 24 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads "''Silicon Valley''s satirical take on the follies of the tech industry is sharper than ever in this very funny third season." Similarly, on

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which uses a weighted average, holds a score of 90 out of 100, based on reviews from 15 critics. Rob Lowman of the ''

Los Angeles Daily News The ''Los Angeles Daily News'' is the second-largest-circulating paid daily newspaper of Los Angeles, California, after the unrelated ''Los Angeles Times'', and the flagship newspaper of the Southern California News Group, a branch of Colorado ...

'', after the release of season three, described the show as "one of the best comedies on television", saying that the show "works as both a sharp satire on the tech industry and a commentary on art versus commercialism". Likewise, in '' Vanity Fair'', Laura Bradley praised the show's ability to mix comedy and drama, writing "''Silicon Valley'' has all the urgency of a high-stakes prestige drama, but at its core, it's a comedy about hapless goobers."

Accolades

In 2016, the series earned nine nominations at the

68th Primetime Emmy Awards The 68th Primetime Emmy Awards honored the best in US prime time television programming from June 1, 2015, until May 31, 2016, as chosen by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The ceremony was held on Sunday, September 18, 2016, at the Mi ...

, including for Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Middleditch), two for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series (Alec Berg for "Daily Active Users"; Mike Judge for "Founder Friendly"), two for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series (Dan O'Keefe for "Founder Friendly"; Alec Berg for "The Uptick"), Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series, Outstanding Production Design, and Outstanding Sound Mixing.

Home media

The third season was released on DVD and Blu-ray on April 11, 2017; bonus features include deleted scenes.

References

External links

* * {{Silicon Valley (TV series) 2016 American television seasons Silicon Valley (TV series)