'Silicon Valley' Scores Best HBO Series Debut in Five Years

'Silicon Valley' Scores Best HBO Series Debut in Five Years

Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis & Butt-head, Idiocracy and Office Space, is often ahead of his time with his comedy. Sometimes, he has to wait a few years for his audience to catch up.

Sunday night, the crowd was waiting for his latest creation.

Silicon Valley, a knowing look at the California tech sub-culture, drew an average of 2 million viewers in its 10 p.m. debut.

That makes the new show the best debut HBO has had for a half-hour since the 2.8 million who watched the Hung premiere in 2009. Silicon Valley also did much much better than the other most recent HBO debut of Looking. That show, which was renewed for a second season in February, got 338,000 viewers for its premiere at 10:30 PM on January 10. Last night’s debut also is more than double the 872,000 viewers that now-cultural-touchstone Girls had for its April 15, 2012, premiere.

 Hollywood hasn’t always had Judge’s back, given the tepid promotion for Idiocracy. Yet Judge got the benefit of a strong lead-in to support his show’s debut. The return of Game of Thrones brought in 6.6 million viewers.

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