Silicon Valley season 4: TJ Miller further explains departure

Why is TJ Miller leaving Silicon Valley after season 4? It is absolutely a question worth asking, mostly because for many actors leaving a show like this is the last thing that they would ever want to do. It’s a perennial Emmy favorite, hilarious, and has a fairly short production window that leaves the door open to do other projects through most of the rest of the year.

Nonetheless, the main issue with Miller (who plays Erlich on the HBO show) is that even with this in mind, he is still someone with an incredible amount of content on his plate. Not only does he do movies and voice-overs, but he also still does comedy and is tapped in to almost every form of entertainment possible. He’s someone who seems to love a variety of different work, which is why he figured that this was the right time to say farewell to the show and to the character.

In explaining his exit further to Entertainment Weekly, Miller passed along the following messagE:

“I work so much. I do every single platform. I do every single medium, down to podcasting with Cash Levy all the way up to being in an underwater thriller with Kristin Stewart and wanting to be the funny part of that. So [I left] for my own sanity, and for the sake of slowing down, and being more present and able to devote more time to this myriad of projects that I have going on. The other thing of it is that I didn’t get into comedy to be a television actor, and the second that I felt that there was a possibility of going on autopilot — of even phoning it in with this particular project — that’s when I say, ‘Okay, I gotta walk away. I have to do something where this won’t happen. I can’t allow myself to show up and give a B-plus performance on a show that is an A-plus when it comes to television.’ That is a huge, huge part of it.”

Miller also added that he made this decision in regards to Erlich midway through the fourth season, and worked with the show and HBO to properly determine the right way to exit. He continues to have a great relationship with him, and this is not an acrimonious departure by any means. He also made it clear that this was not a move against the show in some way, and that he certainly wasn’t leaving because he thought he was “too big” to do the show.

Erlich is going to be missed on the series, largely because he was the primary source of ridiculous antics for the Pied Piper group. Maybe his exit does force the show to progress its story or think of some more entertaining avenues; it’s too early to tell whether or not it will be a good thing, but it should be fun to explore this further.

The next Silicon Valley episode is going to air on HBO Sunday night. If you do want to preview that further, you can do so by heading over to the link here. (Photo: HBO.)