The Valley

Subject pretty much sums it up. Great story of the early days of the internet told from varying points and perspectives using a dynamic mixing documentary, interviews and drama to really capture the events that took place, that when done well, which I believe it was, is simply incredible and quite enjoyable.

This is a GREAT and really informative show about the tech boom and how all sorts of people came out of the woodwork to take advantage. I am not sure how anyone could watch this and not be entertained by the sheer ridiculousness of some of the things people did. I get that it is a docudrama and, therefore, some of the facts are embellished, but that can't possibly make this a one star series. Strange that the ratings are near a 7 overall but the only people who have posted written reviews have it at a 1 or 2. To me that suggests there are a few haters out there who didn't get what they wanted out of this show and they are dragging down the rating without giving it a real chance. This is an excellent series that has been getting better with each episode. The Michael Fenne story is so ridiculous and hilarious that it is worth watching just to see that part alone.

Most of the reviews are a riot over the confusion of documentary or drama. I believe the fact here is, the stories they were able to portray. If you want to learn about the..boom, this is your best bet. It's also the most accurate of portrayals for Silicon Valley. All I ask, leave your mind open to other ways cinema, story telling can be shot.

This should be a 7.5 but I rounded but bc it's the nice thing to do especially because this is way better than a 6.4. I've read the user reviews and a lot of them bash the story telling, claiming to be very disappointed because they were very interested in the subject matter yet the show did not provide the straightforward clinical examination they were expecting. It seems as though the trailer may have created expectations that the show did not deliver. I watched this without having seen a trailer and was pleasantly refreshed by the choice to use this innovative style of docudrama. To all of the reviewers saying why on earth would they do this? Let's call it what it is: it's ripping off the Big Short, which was a hugely successful and applauded business film. The style of the big short made a story about finance accessible to people unfamiliar with the subject matter. I'm glad NatGeo tried to do something different. It definitely hits and misses. Certain aspects of it are great, while others, like some of the casting decisions, the rapping, super long dance sequences, cartoonish hypotheticals, fourth wall breaking (which I didn't hate) take the viewer of the story. Here's what I do applaud this series for and why I give it a high rating, and why it hooked me: the storylines. I have never heard of Michael Fenne, Pixelon or The Globe.com. If it weren't for this series, I'm sure I'd never have heard about these companies. Also, Netscape is usually second fiddle to other stories and I loved getting a deep dive. I'm a huge fan of the decision to focus on these stories. I find them very compelling and watching them dramatized with the real life talking heads worked for me. Steve Zahn as Michael Fenne is extraordinary. While it's stylistic choices may turn some off, especially those expecting something straightforward, I found myself looking forward to the next episode while watching this series and I personally can't say that for too many shows these days.

It took me about 2 episodes to get use to the format of the show and even then it's pretty disruptive. They are trying too hard to spice up the boring topic of browser wars but as someone who worked for SGI (Clark's first company) and now at Microsoft... how can I say no to this. Andreesen has always fascinated me as I grew up using Gopher, Mosaic and then of course Netscape.

Funny to think now the Edge browser is overnight going to become a Chromium based browser and the browser wars are far dead. Now Azure vs. AWS...

What a long way we've come. If you like tech stories.. watch it, you'll put up with the poorly done format.