Tech dystopia is having a moment

Oscar season brings prestige films about tech scandals: Aaron Sorkin's Social Network sequel, a Sam Altman biopic, documentaries on Elon Musk, Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried.

CBS launches a Silicon Valley lawyer show

CBS's Cupertino is a broadcast legal drama set in Silicon Valley from Robert and Michelle King, the creators of The Good Wife, The Good Fight, Elsbeth and Evil.

The show is surprisingly good

Cupertino is one of the most tightly constructed and purely enjoyable debuts of the season. The Kings are known for making addictive procedurals with timely themes, eccentric characters and humor.

Two lawyers are fired from a startup

Mike Colter plays Michael Price, a fair-minded attorney fired from the startup he co-founded. Rachel Keller plays Olivia Siffre, a junior lawyer also fired with flimsy cause. Both have strong wrongful-termination cases.

The odds are stacked against them

A colleague warns Michael that suing in Silicon Valley is futile. Apple, Google, Facebook and OpenAI have a combined value of twenty three trillion dollars and protect each other. Lawyers make money from startups, not lawsuits.

“This is Silicon Valley. It's David and Goliath. And the Goliaths protect each other here.”

They form their own firm

Michael and Olivia start Price, Siffre and Associates to fight for the little guy. They build an ensemble including Michael's former assistant Christy, a coder client Vikram, and Busy Philipps as a vengeful billionaire's ex with a law degree.

The cases reflect real tech scandals

The firm tackles cases familiar from tech news: chatbots influencing youths to kill, prediction market founders in legal chaos, underpaid gig-economy workers in deplorable conditions. AI and its dangers are a major focus.

The show educates while entertaining

The Kings want to educate viewers about tech's impact on healthcare and democracy, how judges lacking tech knowledge can be manipulated, deepfakes casting doubt on evidence, and the ubiquity of surveillance and personal data sales.

The Kings chose underdogs over titans

Robert King explained why the show focuses on the Davids rather than the Goliaths Hollywood psychoanalyzes. He said of tech billionaires: because they're really the stupidest and dumbest people.

“Because they're really the stupidest and dumbest people.”

The show balances darkness with fun

Despite painting a grim picture of Silicon Valley, Cupertino is remarkably fun. The cast shares warm chemistry, dialogue fizzes, and recurring roles feature actors like Fisher Stevens and Joe Morton. Details like an office under constant construction make the story pop.

The show revives the legal drama

After screening ten episodes, the reviewer had given up on network legal dramas as a medium for smart, contemporary stories. Cupertino gives hope for the procedural format, even if it cannot fix tech's addled future.