Does anyone remember TV shows solely showing programmers as over or underweight geeks with a speciality of typing fast on the computer keyboard and fighting the clock to hack into government accounts or producing a bunch of green letters flowing on the black screen?
Well, it seems that even the series creators have upgraded and the TV series in the last couple of years or so also depict some more serious social and economic issues and provide some deeper insight into the main character.
In this article, we break down the top TV Series with a technological focus of the last couple of years.
Mr. Robot
Speaking of genres, Mr Robot may fit into the category of techno-thrillers. Right after its original release in 2015, it had the attention of viewers all around the world, Elliot Alderson is a (senior) cybersecurity engineer by day, but that is not all. As a side job, he is involved in a “hacktivist” group called fsociety. Together, they are on a mission to bring down corporate America and to destroy all debt and financial records of what is portrayed as the largest conglomerate in the world. Did he make it after fours seasons? Well, you will find no sign of spoiler alert right here.
Silicon Valley
Considered to be a comedy on many portals, this TV show first aired in 2014 depicts the startup life, especially typical in the geographical region after which the series was named. Friends/coworkers with the vision to create the innovative product followed with all the challenges in finding the investment for the project. The rumour has it that one of the characters is based on real-life people, such as Mark Zuckerberg. Besides that, there are other uncanny similarities between the actual occurrences when tech giants are trying to knock down a startup, or when there is a Congress hearing.
Black Mirror
Another critically-acclaimed TV show, this sci-fi dystopian series caught a lot of attention since it appeared on Netflix in 2015. Some say you could recognize the people who were watching it since they would usually cover the camera on their computers when they were not using it.
Each of the Black Mirror episodes is a separate story of how any valuable technology breakthrough is may have a really negative influence on our lives. We will not give you any spoiler alerts on this one either, but you could hear the comments that some of the episodes were too frightening, only because they seem too realistic.
The IT Crowd
With this one, we are taking a break from the topics that leave you mind-blown hours after the episode ended. Namely, although it came out earlier than most of the TV shows on the list (it even ended in 2010, after only four seasons), there is no doubt that this is a comedy and there is no doubt that it had its TV crowd. Frankly, it does did show IT guys in a somewhat stereotypical way – geeks and socially awkward geeks working in a basement of a big company. When things get interesting is when they are assigned a completely non-technical person as their manager. The classical British humor takes place from there showing the pains both sides face when their worlds intertwine.
Westworld
This dystopian sci-fi western story takes place in the 2050s, but you can still watch it now. Westworld is in fact a Western-themed amusement park whose hosts are AI-enabled robots. Thanks to artificial consciousness, the guests are supposed to live out their wildest fantasies. However, at some point, the hosts reach a level of self-awareness and that is when the amusement park starts to be not so amusing for everyone.
Enjoy and do let us know which we should add to this list.
