Parents' Guide to Betas

Somebody who worked on Betas must have held down a stint at a Silicon Valley company, because the show gets a lot of things right: man-boys in ironic T-shirts play with Nerf guns while coworkers try desperately to concentrate underneath their headphones. The first thing a recently funded rival start-up does upon getting a round of investment capital is buy its exec staff matching shirts and stride into the local watering hole to offer Jagerbombs to everyone in the house. Note: That start-up created an app that automatically finds street-parking spaces, always at a premium in Silicon Valley's tech gulches. Yep, Betas has the inside scoop.

It's funny, too, not just in a broad-strokes sitcom way but in its finely drawn characterizations. Nash, the more neurotic of the two buddies who founded Betas' startup, psyches himself up for difficult situations by listening to The Little River Band; Trey is so awkward when approaching a woman at a bar that she calls him an "Aspie." Betas sets interesting characters afloat in a curious milieu that's very much of a particular place and time. It's worth a watch, but parents may want to watch along with teens to counter irresponsible messages as well as the show's sometimes rampant sexism and objectification of women.