Veep, Silicon Valley: HBO Shows Renewed

HBO has announced that Veep will return for a fourth season while Silicon Valley has been renewed for a second season. Only three episodes of the latter have aired so far.

Here are the details:

HBO RENEWS “VEEP” FOR A FOURTH SEASON AND “SILICON VALLEY” FOR A SECOND SEASON

LOS ANGELES, April 21, 2014 – HBO has renewed the comedy series VEEP for a fourth season and SILICON VALLEY for a second season, it was announced today by Michael Lombardo, president, HBO Programming. The renewals follow the recent two-season renewal of “Game of Thrones.”

Created by Armando Iannucci (Oscar(R) nominee for co-writing “In the Loop”), VEEP stars Emmy(R) and Screen Actors Guild Award winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer, who becomes vice president, only to discover the job is nothing like she expected, but everything she was warned about. The Emmy(R)-nominated and Writers Guild Award-winning series kicked off its ten-episode third season Sunday, April 6 (10:30-11:00 p.m. ET/PT).

In addition to Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the ensemble cast for the third season includes Emmy(R) winner Tony Hale, Emmy(R) nominee Anna Chlumsky, Reid Scott, Matt Walsh, Timothy C. Simons, Sufe Bradshaw and Kevin Dunn.

Mike Judge (“Office Space,” “Beavis & Butt-head,” “King of the Hill”) brings his irreverent brand of humor to HBO in the new comedy series SILICON VALLEY. Partially inspired by Judge’s own experiences as a Silicon Valley engineer in the late ’80s, the show is a collaboration between Judge and Alec Berg (“Seinfeld,” HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”), and began its eight-episode first season Sunday, April 6 (10:00-10:30 p.m.).

Cast regulars for the first season include Thomas Middleditch, T.J. Miller, Zach Woods, Kumail Nanjiani, Martin Starr, Josh Brener, Amanda Crew and the late Christopher Evan Welch. Matt Ross guest stars.

Both shows have sparked critical raves, with TheDailyBeast.com calling VEEP a “whiz-bang brilliant political farce,” while Variety.com praised the show’s “fearless irreverence” and described it as “ruthlessly funny.” VanityFair.com hailed star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, observing, “Hers is the strongest comedic performance on television.” SILICON VALLEY was termed a “terrific new comedy” by Entertainment Weekly, which awarded the show an A-, and HollywoodReporter.com called it “flat-out brilliant” and “uncommonly insightful,” while the Washington Post described the show as “delicious” and “hilarious.”

Season three credits: VEEP was created by Armando Iannucci; executive producers, Armando Iannucci, Christopher Godsick and Frank Rich; co-executive producers, Simon Blackwell and Tony Roche; producers, Stephanie Laing and Julia Louis-Dreyfus; supervising producers, Chris Addison, Roger Drew, Sean Gray, Ian Martin and Will Smith.

Season one credits: SILICON VALLEY was created by Mike Judge & John Altschuler & Dave Krinsky; executive producers, Mike Judge, Alec Berg, John Altschuler & Dave Krinsky, Michael Rotenberg and Tom Lassally; producer, Jim Kleverweis.

What do you think? Do you like these HBO series? Are you glad to hear they’ll be back?