// THE VERGE — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
Cupertino might be made for your mom, but it’s a good take on tech
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The Social Reckoning has been outsmarted by a new CBS procedural.
The Social Reckoning has been outsmarted by a new CBS procedural.
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Cupertino brings the tech backlash to the CBS procedural — an initially awkward combination, but with rewarding results. The show starts off just slightly unsure, but quickly figures out what to do with these strange times, creating fictionalized dupes of the Zizians, Polymarket, Jeff Bezos’ looksmaxxing obsession, OpenAI stealing Scarlett Johansson’s voice, and the fight for AI guardrails, among other familiar tales, and using them to speak to the feeling of helplessness in the face of rapid change that extends well beyond the greater San Francisco area. It turns out the seemingly outdated tools of broadcast TV are a fantastic way to tackle our uncertain future.
Please don’t think Cupertino is some kind of Blue Bloods Bay Area or CSI: The Computer. (Sorry, I mean CSI: Cyber, a real show that lasted two seasons and starred Ted Danson, obviously.) Yes, the show is network TV, in the old-fashioned, 20-episodes-in-a-season sense, and it’s airing on CBS in the highly suspicious age of Ellison. But it has certain pedigree coming from creators Robert and Michelle King, the married couple behind the wonderful Elsbeth, Evil, The Good Wife, and The Good Fight. The Kings are often credited as uniquely sophisticated for network TV. But that still leaves some big questions about what this show is and who it’s for.
Also, yes, it is (mostly) a case-of-the-week show about an upstart Silicon Valley law firm taking on Big Tech one suit at a time. Price Siffre (pronounced “cipher”) is made up of lawyers Michael Price (Mike Colter, aka Luke Cage) and Olivia Siffre (Rachel Keller, Legion), along with their assistant Christy Palladino (Ella Stiller), all of whom left the same evil AI company under not-great circumstances in the pilot. (My recommendation is to skip that first episode — just know they sue tech companies — or at least don’t hold it against the show.) Cipher maybe isn’t the wrong word for this main group: Michael is handsome and guarded, Christy is a King-classic spunky investigator type, and Olivia is religious and loves musicals, so she’s introduced listening to Godspell — it took me probably four whole episodes to forgive the show for that too-cute detail. The ensemble really starts to come together, though, when it’s revealed to be a secret Girls5eva reunion, with the additions of Renée Elise Goldsberry as Michael’s ex/rival and Busy Philipps as MacKenzie Scott (formerly Bezos) if she was very fun and a little drunk.