‘Silicon Valley’: How The Premiere Dealt With The T.J. Miller Situation

I’m so glad to have Silicon Valley back in my life. The HBO tech comedy returned last night, and having seen the first three episodes of the new season, I’m here to tell you that the series doesn’t miss a beat. The Gavin Belson vs. Pied Piper storyline is a ton of fun; Richard’s descent into moral corruption continues; Zach Woods’ Jared is a dream from which I hope I never wake; and Dinesh and Gilfoyle continue to be the combative live-action Tom and Jerry of the San Francisco Bay Area.

There was ample reason to suspect that the Mike Judge comedy could suffer a dip in quality. The series is entering its fifth season and had to creatively pivot after the high-profile departure of original cast member T.J. Miller. Last time we saw unhinged entrepreneur Erlich Bachman he was chilling in a Tibetan opium den in the Season 4 finale smoking himself silly. In exchange for a large sum of cash from Gavin Belson, a monk agrees to let Bachman crash for five years. And that’s the end of that chapter.

So how exactly does Silicon Valley deal with Bachman’s absence in Season 5? By embracing the comedic gift that is Jian Yang (Jimmy O. Yang).

In the Season 5 premiere, Dinesh and Gilfoyle reveal they haven’t heard from their erstwhile friend in months. In an effort to snag both Erlich’s house and his 10% stake in Pied Piper, Jian Yang, who hates Bachman with an almost joyful fervor, decides, naturally, to fake Erlich’s death so he can become the official executor of his estate. The arc not only continues one of the best rivalries on TV, but it also gives Jian Yang an organic reason to interact with many of the other characters, which is predictably gold. As the Season 5 trailer previews, the relationship between the burgeoning criminal mastermind and Pied Piper is fraught with tension, but the cherry on top is how the show continues to find new ways to further Jian Yang’s vendetta against Erlich, despite T.J. Miller’s absence.

I enjoyed the character of Erlich Bachman. His comedic escapades with Jian Yang were a welcomed source of levity, and he provided organic story and conflict. That said, his absence isn’t really noticeable in the first three episodes. The show isn’t suffering from a lack of capable actors, and Erlich’s departure will hopefully give the ensemble cast (especially Amanda Crew and Suzanne Cryer) more opportunities to shine.

For now, Erlich Bachman is gone. But as executive producer Alec Berg noted during last week’s PaleyFest panel, it may have been time for the character to make a one-way trip to Tibet.

“The Erlich character was getting harder and harder to write into the show because he wasn’t someone who worked at the company,” Berg said. “It was at a point where it was going to be really hard to find an organic way to get the Erlich character into the show anyway, so from that standpoint, it was kind of time. And then T.J., for a number of reasons, just decided that his time had come and gone and he wanted to move on, so we had the narrative challenge to keep him in the show and then it became ‘OK well, maybe it’s just time to not have him on the show.’”

The Season 5 premiere of Silicon Valley is available to stream on HBO Go and HBO Now.

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