tek's rating:

Betas, on Amazon
A.V. Club; Groundswell Productions; IMDb; TV.com; TV Tango; Wikipedia

This ran for just 11 episodes, in 2013-14, but I didn't see it until 2018. (Actually, I probably watched the first episode in 2017, several months before I continued watching the series, and then didn't actually finish it until early 2019.)

So, there are these guys who are developing a social app called "BRB," which uses an algorithm that, like, determines users' compatibility with each other, or whatever. The main programmer is Nash Dagavi (Karan Soni). Technically, he and his best friend Trey Barrett are co-founders, though Trey is the CEO. I'm not sure how much, if any, knowledge Trey has of programming, but he's good at things like business and networking. And he's better at socializing, considering Nash is pretty neurotic. Anyway, there are a couple other programmers on their team. There's Hobbes, who is kind of an asshole, but not altogether unlikable. And there's Mitchell, who is kind of nerdy and not at all good at socializing. He has a crush on a woman named Mikki (Maya Erskine), who works in the same communal workplace as Team BRB. (Having watched this a few years after it first came out, I want to compare the workplace to the one from Alex, Inc.) Mitchell is vaguely stalkery, but really harmless. And luckily, Mikki is sort of offbeat enough not to be freaked out, or anything. Anyway... in the first episode, Trey tells Nash that he's set up a meeting with a guy named George "The Murch" Murchison (Ed Begley, Jr.), who invests in startup tech companies. In truth, they're just crashing his party. But the night before that, Trey tries to prove to his team that people do actually want to interact instead of just staring at screens, by approaching a woman at a bar and hitting on her. Lisa (Margo Harshman) totally shoots him down. And the next night, she's at Murch's party. It turns out she works for him, and has some sway over what startups he decides to invest in. So... that makes things complicated. Still, Trey and Nash manage to interest Murch in their app.

In episode 2, the BRB team starts working at the Murch's company. Meanwhile, Trey tries to get some publicity for BRB from Jordan Alexis (Madeline Zima), who works for a tech blog called Valley Smash. She'll become helpful in various ways, over the course of the series. Also we learn that Hobbes has a twisted relationship with his ex-wife, Brenda (Natasha Leggero). And Mitchell recruits Mikki to help the team with PR. And... I'm actually not sure how much more I want to say about the series. I suppose I should mention there's a drug dealer/photographer named Dane who I guess is friends with some of the guys. Or something. And in the third episode, Nash's parents force him to go on a blind date with a woman named Divya, which I only mention because she was played by Tiya Sircar, who was familiar to me from a couple of shows I'd watched before this, but which came out some years after this. (So I guess it's kind of lucky that I was so late in watching it.) Anyway, she was great, but not really Nash's type. His type is a recurring character named Michael Lau. And there's one episode where we meet Mikki's mother, which I only mention because she was played by Sandra Oh. And Trey eventually seeks help finding investors, from a woman named Victoria, whom Murch warned him not to trust. And in the finale, the BRB team have to make a tough decision about the future of their company.

Well, it's a rather quirky and amusing show, with fun characters. And I wish it would have gotten a second season, but the way it ends isn't bad, as series finales go, I guess. Oh, also I like the theme song, Power Lines, by Telekinesis. (There are also cool songs at the end of each episode.)


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