The cast of Silicon Valley talks about the new season without T.J. Miller and incorporating the message of #MeToo

The cast of Silicon Valley talks about the show sans T.J. Miller and how the upcoming season will tackle gender equality.

Over this past weekend, the cast and creators of HBO’s Silicon Valley gathered in Los Angeles for the PaleyFest. With T.J. Miller’s abrupt exit from the series, executive producer, Alec Berg, talked about what the upcoming season will be like without the infamous Erlich Bachman.

The producer also shared the struggles they had with trying to keep Bachman’s character on the show, who seemed to hit a dead end for character development.

"“We had this central character that we were not going to have on the show anymore, so we had kind of been through it before, so we knew going in ‘Okay, this is a surmountable challenge. It’s not going to be fun, and it’s going to be difficult.’ Also, the Erlich character was getting harder and harder to write him into the show because he wasn’t someone who worked at the company, he was their past investor and their landlord and we started doing stories about how he was feeling marginalized and he wasn’t really one of the gang and what he was doing about that.”"

Kumail Nanjiani, who plays the goofy Dinesh on Silicon Valley, also informed the crowd that this season the show will talk about gender equality and how women are treated.

Nanjiani said the show will not directly focus on the #MeToo movement but the concept of the movement will be a part of the plot this season.

"“There is a plot that goes over a couple of episodes later in the season that does talk about that movement, not directly, but what that movement is about is definitely tackled.”"

During the panel, the premise for the new season was discussed which will follow the group’s journey with success in the tech industry.

The cast also talked about how Amanda Crew is one of the only females on the show and the decision that was made for her not to be romantically involved with any of the male characters.

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While there has been much speculation that this could be the final season of Silicon Valley, EP Mike Judge shared his thoughts.

"“Looking at these episodes, it kind of takes on a new life, kind of a second wind. It could go on for a while, you never know.”"

Silicon Valley premieres its fifth season on HBO on March 25.