Crossover November: Can HBO’s ‘Veep,’ ‘Silicon Valley’ work in perfect disharmony?

There are hardly any shows on TV right now with more laughs per second than “Veep” and “Silicon Valley” on HBO. The two boast tremendous casts, amazing writing, and a lion’s share of award nominations between them. The two even share a night together in the spring alongside “Game of Thrones.”

When you consider that the two are both comedies with snark and bold, brash characters, isn’t it fair to at least wonder what it would be like if the two ever joined forces? In the latest edition of our Crossover November series, we’re going to dive into this idea further.

The case for a crossover – It could happen so organically that it’s not even funny. We’ve already seen Selina visit a tech company on “Veep,” and the results were almost as hilarious as you would imagine her meeting someone like Erlich. Also, we envision the idea of Russ as some sort of donor to a lobby or a PAC being something that would have us rolling on the floor. Maybe his cause would be cause who have doors like this, or really unusual sushi restaurants that are expensive for no reason.

Also, we see similarities between some of the other characters. Amy and Richard both have strong levels of ambition, Jonah and Erlich are desperate to impress everyone important, and there are similarities between Jared and Richard Splett in the socially-awkward department.

The case against it – Well, this is HBO. They’re not the sort of network that needs to go out and desperately seek a crossover of any variety. These moves are typically done for the sake of ratings, and these shows operate on a model where quality matters most. There’s no real obvious gain that comes from doing it here, and given their limited episode orders of 10-12 installments a year, there is probably not much of a desire to pause their own material and try to combine the two worlds.

While we the shows’ shared cynicism as in some ways the perfect connective tissue, this may just be one of those ideas that is better for some sort of promo for the two shows or a cameo, as opposed to a traditional crossover. Or, maybe you just put Julia Louis-Dreyfus on stage with T.J. Miller and see what happens. We guess that the recent Old Navy ad featuring Louis-Dreyfus and Kumail Nanjiani will have to be good enough.

If you think such an idea could work, let us know in the comments! Also, sign up here to secure some more TV updates on everything we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: HBO.)