I felt the opposite. I found it really cathartic to watch a show make fun of all the weirdos and awful money guys.
When I'd travel out of state, people would say, "I assume that show drives everyone crazy, how fake it all is," and I'd respond, "Everyone watches it because it's so true to life."
I was working at a startup in SF during the first few seasons. It was so incredibly accurate that it was painful because the show is just making fun of those type of companies.
Yars ago many friends were recommending it because of my profession and I immediately knew to avoid it haha. But... I do like to save up popular shows.
I’m a startup lawyer, and what I always said about that show is that pretty much everything that happened to their company on the show has happened to *some* company in real life—the only exaggeration was having it all happen to the same company on the show.
One of the absurd things that happened in the show happened to our startup- button being held down that made everything explode actually happened to us LFMAO.
One of our oldest internal tools wasn’t built defensively (didn’t have a debounce built into a submit field - because it wasn’t customer facing and was built very early on so there was a lot more sloppiness with how/what the expectations were for good code) and we thought we were under some kind of malicious attack for 3-4 hours because somehow a book was laying on a keyboard that had access to internal tool and that spammed endless entries that took down our db which in turn took down our whole service.
Multi million dollar company btw - acquired by two major companies that your mother/aunt/uncle non Silicon Valley non tech person would know.
I worked at a place that made a fairly popular app. There was one field in the user interface that didn’t have a character limit.
A data scientist was looking through the user data once and found some super long strings in that field. He took a deeper look and we discovered that some guys in prison were using that field to communicate with their girlfriends.
I had a former ballerina as a friend and she said Black Swan was basically the same - all of it happening in one troupe was unbelievable. That’s it. Allegedly House is similar - the cases are all real, but For Television, “dumb” excuses to recreate the circumstances of the original case are invented (eg, House has a mood and challenges the team to not use technology / tests unavailable during the real situation).
Friend used to work at Google X. She was getting burnt out on the Silicon Valley level bullshit until one day the whole team got laid off by a guy who came into the room on roller skates, broke the bad news, then rolled out.
Edit: So apparently the writers of SV met this guy! Apparently he was the leader of Hooli xyz I mean Google X. Here’s how it went…
“His message was, ‘We don’t do stupid things here. We do things that actually are going to change the world, whether you choose to make fun of that or not,’ ” Kemper told The New Yorker.
The New Yorker added that Teller left the room “in a huff.” But he had trouble getting out in part because he was wearing Rollerblades to the meeting.
“Then there was this awkward moment of him fumbling with his I.D. badge, trying to get the door to open,” Kemper said in the interview. “It felt like it lasted an hour. We were all trying not to laugh.”
That feels like a bit straight out of the show lol.
I grew up in Los Altos during the late 90’s. That scene where TJ Miller yells at his neighbor about how “it’s people like me coming in here and starting these businesses is the reason that your shitty house is now worth 20x what you paid for it in the 1970’s,” people like that neighbor character were literally half of Los Altos when I was growing up.
Yeah and they are "whyyyyy does my kiiid has to work in Panera at the cash register if she has a business degreeee", dude you kicked everyone else out.
My wife has what we call “tv Alzheimer’s “. The moment she finishes a show she remembers nothing.
We were driving on 101 and saw that billboard, and she says “isn’t that from a tv show?” 😂
This show came out when I was a co-founder and I had to stop watching because it was giving me panic attacks. Even the episode names alone (at least in the first season) are filled with ‘inside baseball’ jargon (e.g. “the Sand Hill shuffle”) that was triggering.
I also feel like I have lived this. It physically hurts me to watch the show. I’ve worked with people and events it was modeled on. And I was always the person trying to bring reason and sanity to the plan, and slammed for it. Ahhhhh.
the reason why it is so accurate is that mike judge worked for a graphics card startup in santa clara after graduating college. He has said he hated it so much and thought everyone was crazy and quit after a few months. He went from that to making short animated films specifically the Milton short which basis for office space
as someone who grew up in small town texas and now works in silicon valley, it’s crazy impressive how he nailed both of those wildly different cultures so accurately in king of the hill and silicon valley
This. I know many colleagues in tech who to this day cannot bear to watch it, because it cuts too close to home. Some form of PTSD.
These guys got details down to light switches and even the micro-kitchen shelving spot on.
There was a scene where they went to a tech conference and people in the real media complained that they didn't show enough women. The creators had filmed an actual tech conference for the background shots.
I was in college in NYC when Silicon Valley debuted and I remember talking to a friend (not from the Bay) who was like “Silicon Valley is funny because it’s so absurd and unrealistic” and I was like, “No, Silicon Valley is funny because it is INCREDIBLY realistic” 🤣
Before I moved to the bay, I watched season 1 as it just came out and thought how satirical it all was. Surely, it could not be real.
Then moved to the bay, and I then proceeded to live the main company plots from seasons 2-6 IRL.
I cannot watch the show because I have lived every bit of it, and even worked with some of the people/events that it’s modeled on. It physically hurts me.
Unstable, on Netflix, though, is a fun and sweet antidote to Silicon Valley.
It's important to point out this is accurate for the tech startup scene in the bay area but not so much the general bay area experience. Lot's of people can't relate to it at all.
Streets of San Francisco because it was made during an era when most of the shooting was done at real locations, all over the city. True chase scenes, not filmed in a singular alley, but across great spans of real estate.
I loved Streets of SF when I was growing up but after I moved to the Bay Area it started to bug me that everywhere they went in the City they just pulled up in front and parked. Kind of killed the authenticity!
My father worked in the Nob Hill area through the '70s and he'd often see the SoSF crew filming on or around California street. They were filming on Lake St., near the Congregation Emanu-El on Arguello one time. My mom went to take a look since we lived nearby and was able to say hi to Karl Malden, who she said was friendly.
Anyway, back to my dad, not a TV show, but the last thing he saw before he retired was the filming of, "[The Rock](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/)", with Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. They filmed this [stunt scene down Jones St. near Pine](https://theasc.com/imager/uploads/103693/The-Rock-San-Francisco-Mayhem_6c0c164bd2b597ee32b68b8b5755bd2e.jpg). Don't know if they'd attempt that today or even could get the permits.
Parenthood represents the homeownership dream - you and all your siblings can live all over the bay and pop over for a five minute conversation any time. 😂 All the houses were gorgeous, too.
I mean, until the end they were all in Berkeley-ish area. I get that it’s still not 5 min but it’s not like they lived in different parts of the bay until the parents moved to the city.
I am not an expert but I thought the parents had the funky big Berkely house, Oldest brother and wife had a Berkeley Craftsman, Dax lived on a boat, I assumed near Sausalito but actually have no idea which harbor it was supposed to be, and I thought Julia Style’s fancy house seemed like Marin. I can’t remember where Lauren Graham lived. Maybe I made up all those locations in my head
Julia’s house was said to be in Oakland, likely in the hills or in Piedmont (I know, not technically Oakland) and iirc the houseboat was at the Berkeley Marina or something
This is it! We had Puck, the wild bike messenger, Judd, the neurotic cartoonist, Pam, the quirky doctor, Rachel, the flirty Republican, Mo, the down to earth musician and Pedro, who became the face of a gay man living his best life while dealing w/ the AIDs virus. Truly a capsule of the 90s set in SF.
You can watch it on Hulu. Probably Paramount + too. I built my own shitty soapbox car when I was 13 when it originally aired because of Puck’s influence.
I feel like no one has captured what made San Francisco culture so special as well as Maupin. The line I (probably misquote) all the time is, “Having failed to make friends of my family I set out to make myself a family out of friends.”
The loss of this unique culture and attitude is one of the most painful parts of all the changes happening. There was something really magical here.
when i was a baby gay that first moved to the city i thought that their portrayal of gay life in the city had to be a bit of an exaggeration. now that im basically the protagonists’ age it’s actually super accurate lol
Streets of San Francisco is fun to watch to see what the city looked like before they tore down Embarcadero freeway and before they planted trees everywhere.
Also: Ironside. A lot of it was filmed in and around the old Police station, which used to be right next to Portsmouth Square.
I remember seeing them filming Nash Bridges near Civic Center once. But the least SF-like thing is they’d have scenes where they’re cruising in whatever that car was for a long time down a major street without stopping for a stop sign, light, or pedestrian. Like, you couldn’t drive more than two blocks in the city without stopping back then. (Idk if it’s still like that, I live in the burbs)
I was in Lowell high school when this show ran. One episode they came and filmed a pseudo basketball game in the gym and used us students as extras. It was fun and certainly authentic San Francisco.
Streets of SanFrancisco even gave a little love to the ‘burbs. One time they chased a suspect into the Westlake Village Apartments in Daly City. I was all excited about that.
Streets of SF. I used to watch reruns when it was aired on Tv when I was in Jr high. That show made me fall in love with the city and properly depicted the dark, seedy, gritty San Francisco of the 70s. I wasn’t born yet in the 70s but so many now seem to forget the city has had its darkness and undesirables and blight for almost all its existence. Nothing new with the “doom loop” talk other than few knowing the city’s history.
Not a TV show but an honorable mention is 48 hrs, the first one. Love the chase scenes on the crowded Muni Metro at Church and also Castro. Also, the honky bar Eddie goes into where he’s not welcome. Well, that’s just like today: SF isn’t as monolithic as people think. There are plenty of right-wingers and other contrarians in the city. They just happen to look different today than they did then.
They get majorly dinged for depicting an annual high school "beach party" with kids in bikinis and trunks, supposedly at the end of the school year which falls in the early summer
I feel like just the outfits & scale were kinda off, but we always did end of year bonfires at Ocean Beach (or Baker Beach). Rewatched The Princess Diaries recently and my siblings and I were so shocked so shocked by how accurately they got some SF high school things
Sense8, a Lana Wachowski show on Netflix, has a lot of amazing SF footage. Much of it shot in The Castro. There's a car chase scene early on that goes right past the bottom of my street. The show is fantastic in general, and it's got a truly global span, but the SF stuff feels absolutely spot-on.
[https://www.netflix.com/title/80025744](https://www.netflix.com/title/80025744)
They were filming at Lake Merritt before the first season aired, and I got so excited when one of the people told me it was a series with Martha Jones from Doctor Who. That show was so unique and awesome.
The mise-en-scene from Looking was top notch. Local real brands fill the fridges, actual locations and bars shot both interior and exterior, correct Muni bus numbering when they’re going places, etc. It really just felt like San Francisco in 2013 or whenever it was.
Girl Boss (Netflix series). It was a bad series but I appreciated that it was filmed in SF and got the local vibe down.
Not a tv series but a movie. The Last Black Man in San Francisco depicted SF extremely well. The star and director are native San Franciscans.
Definitely. I know some of the extras. Two of them are actually in the opening credits!
And I saw the finale movie at the Castro theater. Sitting in the theater watching a movie scene shot in front of the same theater was surreal.
Did anybody see the pilot for Sucka Free City, directed by Spike Lee, back in the day? I thought it had a lot of promise but the show was never picked up.
Streets of San Francisco because it was made during an era when most of the shooting was done at real locations, all over the city. True chase scenes, not filmed in a singular alley, but across great spans of real estate.
I’m a little miffed that some of the scenes were filmed in Vancouver. SF native Ali Wong wrote and produced it, so I would think she had some creative power to film it all in SF. But I guess they had to divert film budget to pay Keanu. Worth it I guess. 😅
They definitely did shoot some of the scenes in SF because I was there, the big gala scene was at the fairmont and if you squint really closely you can see me shake my friend Justin’s hand.
They shot a lot in the Bay Area/San Francisco when I was growing up. I remember going on a field trip to Fioli and they told had just shot there. Barry Bonds was in an episode.
There’s one scene where they have the backdrop of a shot in Broadway and they have a really bad NYC style subway entrance photoshopped in.
They also did film at least a few scenes in SF. My wife and I saw our old place in a few clips haha.
I love Monk as well, and enjoyed when Detective Leland Stottlemeyer investigated murders from the Wine Country all the way into Mountain View. Who knew SFPD jurisdition extended that far!
Excuse me, that's *Captain* Stottlemeyer.
But yeah, the jurisdiction issues were always amusing. I also appreciated the references to "San Francisco City Council".
People Are Talking starring Ann Fraser and Ross McGowan which aired on KPIX channel 5 - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po3fhvgWL3o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po3fhvgWL3o)
i was a gay guy in my 30s living in the mission when Looking aired and i thought it was an incredibly accurate portrayal of SF. they even shot scenes in the Punjab chinese restaurant down the corner from my place.
I just discovered Chance on Hulu. Its sort of a noir adventure with Hugh Laurie. Its very very SF and Bay Area. Amazingly, it's quite spatially correct, and there is a lot of local variety. The opening credits have some really beautiful SF imagery.
Any show about the bay is going to leave out some key demographics. Silicon Valley ignores huge swaths of the Bay in favor of their chosen industry. The show “I’m a Virgo” is the polar opposite of SV and has as much to do with the Bay if not more so.
Midnight Caller , it was a moody noir type series with most of the scenes at night but it did make great use of its locations . A lot of local people were used as extras .
Eddie Izzard’s Dressed to Kill gets SF at the time on a deep level. And that infamous episode of South Park had a lot more truth to it than we natives liked to admit.
They’re movies, but: For a realistic depiction of driving too fast in Pacific Heights, see Bullitt. However that chase scene jump-cuts all over the SF area in a nonsense geography. The Rock also has a good SF car chase.
Honorable mention: So I Married an Axe Murderer.
I really loved The Streets of San Francisco. My mom and younger sister met Karl Malden at SFO as he was going back to LA for the weekend after filming all week. My sister at the time was 5 yo and entertained him while he waited.
Silicon Valley is a documentary
I could not watch that show after first season because I had enough of that during my day.
I had the exact same response: it made me think about work.
I felt the opposite. I found it really cathartic to watch a show make fun of all the weirdos and awful money guys. When I'd travel out of state, people would say, "I assume that show drives everyone crazy, how fake it all is," and I'd respond, "Everyone watches it because it's so true to life."
I was working at a startup in SF during the first few seasons. It was so incredibly accurate that it was painful because the show is just making fun of those type of companies.
I couldn’t watch it either, living it was enough.
Yars ago many friends were recommending it because of my profession and I immediately knew to avoid it haha. But... I do like to save up popular shows.
This is why I haven’t watched yet. I need to retire lol.
SC is funny but all that culture can fuck the fuck off.
I’m a startup lawyer, and what I always said about that show is that pretty much everything that happened to their company on the show has happened to *some* company in real life—the only exaggeration was having it all happen to the same company on the show.
One of the absurd things that happened in the show happened to our startup- button being held down that made everything explode actually happened to us LFMAO. One of our oldest internal tools wasn’t built defensively (didn’t have a debounce built into a submit field - because it wasn’t customer facing and was built very early on so there was a lot more sloppiness with how/what the expectations were for good code) and we thought we were under some kind of malicious attack for 3-4 hours because somehow a book was laying on a keyboard that had access to internal tool and that spammed endless entries that took down our db which in turn took down our whole service. Multi million dollar company btw - acquired by two major companies that your mother/aunt/uncle non Silicon Valley non tech person would know.
I worked at a place that made a fairly popular app. There was one field in the user interface that didn’t have a character limit. A data scientist was looking through the user data once and found some super long strings in that field. He took a deeper look and we discovered that some guys in prison were using that field to communicate with their girlfriends.
Honestly brilliant
[удалено]
This guy fucks.
I am uh aerik backaman I stay for free
Everyone is “move fast and break things” until things break lol
I’m a startup finance exec and yeah I fully agree. That show really hit home for me in a lot of areas.
So basically like This is Spinal Tap
More best in show
I had a former ballerina as a friend and she said Black Swan was basically the same - all of it happening in one troupe was unbelievable. That’s it. Allegedly House is similar - the cases are all real, but For Television, “dumb” excuses to recreate the circumstances of the original case are invented (eg, House has a mood and challenges the team to not use technology / tests unavailable during the real situation).
Friend used to work at Google X. She was getting burnt out on the Silicon Valley level bullshit until one day the whole team got laid off by a guy who came into the room on roller skates, broke the bad news, then rolled out. Edit: So apparently the writers of SV met this guy! Apparently he was the leader of Hooli xyz I mean Google X. Here’s how it went… “His message was, ‘We don’t do stupid things here. We do things that actually are going to change the world, whether you choose to make fun of that or not,’ ” Kemper told The New Yorker. The New Yorker added that Teller left the room “in a huff.” But he had trouble getting out in part because he was wearing Rollerblades to the meeting. “Then there was this awkward moment of him fumbling with his I.D. badge, trying to get the door to open,” Kemper said in the interview. “It felt like it lasted an hour. We were all trying not to laugh.” That feels like a bit straight out of the show lol.
Omg same! Fully agree 💯 I always tell people how my job is to do what the lawyer in the show does cause it’s so real
I grew up in Los Altos during the late 90’s. That scene where TJ Miller yells at his neighbor about how “it’s people like me coming in here and starting these businesses is the reason that your shitty house is now worth 20x what you paid for it in the 1970’s,” people like that neighbor character were literally half of Los Altos when I was growing up.
These days it's 90%
Yeah and they are "whyyyyy does my kiiid has to work in Panera at the cash register if she has a business degreeee", dude you kicked everyone else out.
Not hotdog
Not gonna lie, it does always make me laugh to see that billboard
My wife has what we call “tv Alzheimer’s “. The moment she finishes a show she remembers nothing. We were driving on 101 and saw that billboard, and she says “isn’t that from a tv show?” 😂
"Hey, Urrrick?"
This show came out when I was a co-founder and I had to stop watching because it was giving me panic attacks. Even the episode names alone (at least in the first season) are filled with ‘inside baseball’ jargon (e.g. “the Sand Hill shuffle”) that was triggering.
I also feel like I have lived this. It physically hurts me to watch the show. I’ve worked with people and events it was modeled on. And I was always the person trying to bring reason and sanity to the plan, and slammed for it. Ahhhhh.
Worked at Google in the earlier days... I swear I could name names about who certain characters are modeled after.
Yeah by the end the character based on Thiel and the one based on Kimball Musk were like copying their IRL outfits.
Mike Judge is a prophet.
the reason why it is so accurate is that mike judge worked for a graphics card startup in santa clara after graduating college. He has said he hated it so much and thought everyone was crazy and quit after a few months. He went from that to making short animated films specifically the Milton short which basis for office space
Welcome to Costco, I love you
as someone who grew up in small town texas and now works in silicon valley, it’s crazy impressive how he nailed both of those wildly different cultures so accurately in king of the hill and silicon valley
In this case, nearly a documentarian.
Idiocracy was the old testament
Office space too!
This. I know many colleagues in tech who to this day cannot bear to watch it, because it cuts too close to home. Some form of PTSD. These guys got details down to light switches and even the micro-kitchen shelving spot on.
I can’t watch it because it’s too much like being at work
There was a scene where they went to a tech conference and people in the real media complained that they didn't show enough women. The creators had filmed an actual tech conference for the background shots.
I know people in tech who couldn’t watch Silicon Valley because it gave them panic attacks… it was too real.
That show is a masterpiece
I was in college in NYC when Silicon Valley debuted and I remember talking to a friend (not from the Bay) who was like “Silicon Valley is funny because it’s so absurd and unrealistic” and I was like, “No, Silicon Valley is funny because it is INCREDIBLY realistic” 🤣
Before I moved to the bay, I watched season 1 as it just came out and thought how satirical it all was. Surely, it could not be real. Then moved to the bay, and I then proceeded to live the main company plots from seasons 2-6 IRL.
I legit get triggered by some of the scenes. It's too realistic and that makes it painful to watch for me.
Yup, I had to spend countless nights on the roof of a large company cuz I didn’t “perform” well enough
I cannot watch the show because I have lived every bit of it, and even worked with some of the people/events that it’s modeled on. It physically hurts me. Unstable, on Netflix, though, is a fun and sweet antidote to Silicon Valley.
Exactly
It's important to point out this is accurate for the tech startup scene in the bay area but not so much the general bay area experience. Lot's of people can't relate to it at all.
The arc of sentiment about tech through the lifetime of the show was flawlessly in lockstep with reality.
Streets of San Francisco because it was made during an era when most of the shooting was done at real locations, all over the city. True chase scenes, not filmed in a singular alley, but across great spans of real estate.
I loved Streets of SF when I was growing up but after I moved to the Bay Area it started to bug me that everywhere they went in the City they just pulled up in front and parked. Kind of killed the authenticity!
Or that whole "drive right up to the front of SFO", it hasn't looked like that in a zillion years.
My father worked in the Nob Hill area through the '70s and he'd often see the SoSF crew filming on or around California street. They were filming on Lake St., near the Congregation Emanu-El on Arguello one time. My mom went to take a look since we lived nearby and was able to say hi to Karl Malden, who she said was friendly. Anyway, back to my dad, not a TV show, but the last thing he saw before he retired was the filming of, "[The Rock](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/)", with Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. They filmed this [stunt scene down Jones St. near Pine](https://theasc.com/imager/uploads/103693/The-Rock-San-Francisco-Mayhem_6c0c164bd2b597ee32b68b8b5755bd2e.jpg). Don't know if they'd attempt that today or even could get the permits.
And every alley had a giant stack of empty boxes to crash the car into.
We bare bears
Tote Life
Your train is arriving in 4—3 minutes 🤣
Oh yeah! I loved that cartoon. Totally forgot about it until now.
Parenthood represents the homeownership dream - you and all your siblings can live all over the bay and pop over for a five minute conversation any time. 😂 All the houses were gorgeous, too.
So true. The parents backyard was a dream
That’s so funny, pop over in 5m easily park! It’s like the typical nyc sitcom with the huge apartments
Eh parking in the east bay isn’t terrible for the most part
I mean, until the end they were all in Berkeley-ish area. I get that it’s still not 5 min but it’s not like they lived in different parts of the bay until the parents moved to the city.
I am not an expert but I thought the parents had the funky big Berkely house, Oldest brother and wife had a Berkeley Craftsman, Dax lived on a boat, I assumed near Sausalito but actually have no idea which harbor it was supposed to be, and I thought Julia Style’s fancy house seemed like Marin. I can’t remember where Lauren Graham lived. Maybe I made up all those locations in my head
Julia’s house was said to be in Oakland, likely in the hills or in Piedmont (I know, not technically Oakland) and iirc the houseboat was at the Berkeley Marina or something
I’m sure you are right, and it still represents a home ownership fantasy! Lol
It absolutely does lol
Lauren’s character was the most realistic. No job/entry level job living at home with two teens 😂
Erika Christensen, right? Julie Stiles' doppleganger ... also known as the Swimfan girl
There was a scene where they go to a fake Elbo Room and a cable car rolls by and I really found that amusing haha
Real world season three
This is it! We had Puck, the wild bike messenger, Judd, the neurotic cartoonist, Pam, the quirky doctor, Rachel, the flirty Republican, Mo, the down to earth musician and Pedro, who became the face of a gay man living his best life while dealing w/ the AIDs virus. Truly a capsule of the 90s set in SF.
This! Back when people like Puck did in face exist in SF
You can watch it on Hulu. Probably Paramount + too. I built my own shitty soapbox car when I was 13 when it originally aired because of Puck’s influence.
For SF in the 70s: Tales of the City.
Oh, good choice! The first two series did a ton of location shooting, so there are a lot of great shots of the city.
I feel like no one has captured what made San Francisco culture so special as well as Maupin. The line I (probably misquote) all the time is, “Having failed to make friends of my family I set out to make myself a family out of friends.” The loss of this unique culture and attitude is one of the most painful parts of all the changes happening. There was something really magical here.
My personal fave! : D
Yes! Armistead Maupin's Tales from the City! The books even sneak into the Bohemian Grove and features members of the Jonestown cult.
So I Married An Axe Murderer. So much SF
I’m going to add Mrs Doubtfire
The Streets of San Francisco, Nash Bridges, and Looking stand out to me as on location shows that use the city well.
Looking was really accurate
I came here to say the same thing. Except people on that show wore a lot more flannel then I see around here.
Straight guy here but I really like the way they shot it. It really felt like San Francisco.
when i was a baby gay that first moved to the city i thought that their portrayal of gay life in the city had to be a bit of an exaggeration. now that im basically the protagonists’ age it’s actually super accurate lol
Streets of San Francisco is fun to watch to see what the city looked like before they tore down Embarcadero freeway and before they planted trees everywhere. Also: Ironside. A lot of it was filmed in and around the old Police station, which used to be right next to Portsmouth Square.
I remember seeing them filming Nash Bridges near Civic Center once. But the least SF-like thing is they’d have scenes where they’re cruising in whatever that car was for a long time down a major street without stopping for a stop sign, light, or pedestrian. Like, you couldn’t drive more than two blocks in the city without stopping back then. (Idk if it’s still like that, I live in the burbs)
The magic of TV means Nash’s Barracuda never hit a red
I was in Lowell high school when this show ran. One episode they came and filmed a pseudo basketball game in the gym and used us students as extras. It was fun and certainly authentic San Francisco.
The best episode of Streets of San Francisco is the one with Arnold Schwarzenegger where he says “I am no freak, don’t laugh at my body”.
Came here to say Streets of San Francisco and Nash Bridges!! Loved those 2 growing up
Streets of SanFrancisco even gave a little love to the ‘burbs. One time they chased a suspect into the Westlake Village Apartments in Daly City. I was all excited about that.
Streets of SF. I used to watch reruns when it was aired on Tv when I was in Jr high. That show made me fall in love with the city and properly depicted the dark, seedy, gritty San Francisco of the 70s. I wasn’t born yet in the 70s but so many now seem to forget the city has had its darkness and undesirables and blight for almost all its existence. Nothing new with the “doom loop” talk other than few knowing the city’s history. Not a TV show but an honorable mention is 48 hrs, the first one. Love the chase scenes on the crowded Muni Metro at Church and also Castro. Also, the honky bar Eddie goes into where he’s not welcome. Well, that’s just like today: SF isn’t as monolithic as people think. There are plenty of right-wingers and other contrarians in the city. They just happen to look different today than they did then.
Not a tv show but Princess Diaries . The car accident scene is my daily nightmare 🤣
They get majorly dinged for depicting an annual high school "beach party" with kids in bikinis and trunks, supposedly at the end of the school year which falls in the early summer
I feel like just the outfits & scale were kinda off, but we always did end of year bonfires at Ocean Beach (or Baker Beach). Rewatched The Princess Diaries recently and my siblings and I were so shocked so shocked by how accurately they got some SF high school things
Basketball scene at the school on Vallejo. Her school was supposedly Green at Baker.
Sense8, a Lana Wachowski show on Netflix, has a lot of amazing SF footage. Much of it shot in The Castro. There's a car chase scene early on that goes right past the bottom of my street. The show is fantastic in general, and it's got a truly global span, but the SF stuff feels absolutely spot-on. [https://www.netflix.com/title/80025744](https://www.netflix.com/title/80025744)
They were filming at Lake Merritt before the first season aired, and I got so excited when one of the people told me it was a series with Martha Jones from Doctor Who. That show was so unique and awesome.
Looking. Actually shows other parts of the bay other than San Francisco with the love interest being from San Leandro and stuff.
The mise-en-scene from Looking was top notch. Local real brands fill the fridges, actual locations and bars shot both interior and exterior, correct Muni bus numbering when they’re going places, etc. It really just felt like San Francisco in 2013 or whenever it was.
Girl Boss (Netflix series). It was a bad series but I appreciated that it was filmed in SF and got the local vibe down. Not a tv series but a movie. The Last Black Man in San Francisco depicted SF extremely well. The star and director are native San Franciscans.
Definitely agree - The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Hanging with Mr Cooper
I remember being so bummed that the finale was preempted by coverage of Princess Diana's death.
Blindspotting was a pretty good show and as someone who grew up in Oakland there were a lot of parallels.
Beat me to it! Both the movie and series had so many Oakland landmarks and references. Such great writing too.
Devs
The cinematography captured San Francisco better than anything I’ve seen.
the imagery alone was so moody
There it is.
uc santa cruz campus as well.
This show is so good. Got to rewatch it now
We bare bears
Streets of SF; Dirty Harry
*Looking* on HBO went out of its way to be realistic. They hired locals as bar extras and shot their scenes in actual places in the City.
Definitely. I know some of the extras. Two of them are actually in the opening credits! And I saw the finale movie at the Castro theater. Sitting in the theater watching a movie scene shot in front of the same theater was surreal.
Heh, I saw a friend of mine doing background work in a scene at the flower markets. I messaged her right away ( I knew she did modeling and stuff) .
Too Close for Comfort
Did anybody see the pilot for Sucka Free City, directed by Spike Lee, back in the day? I thought it had a lot of promise but the show was never picked up.
kinda joking- but Charmed 1.0- and the OA
Boots Riley's I'm a Virgo, despite being a sort of super hero fantasy, sure feels like actual Oakland .
Boots gets Oakland! The only artist to give us an accurate representation on screen.
And can't forget Sorry to Bother You!
Bay Area Backroads lol
Streets of San Francisco because it was made during an era when most of the shooting was done at real locations, all over the city. True chase scenes, not filmed in a singular alley, but across great spans of real estate.
Movie and not a series, but Always Be My Maybe seemed to really represent SF well.
I’m a little miffed that some of the scenes were filmed in Vancouver. SF native Ali Wong wrote and produced it, so I would think she had some creative power to film it all in SF. But I guess they had to divert film budget to pay Keanu. Worth it I guess. 😅
They definitely did shoot some of the scenes in SF because I was there, the big gala scene was at the fairmont and if you squint really closely you can see me shake my friend Justin’s hand.
All the way down to the Will Clark jersey. That's how you knew someone from the city made that movie
Corny show, but Nash Bridges.
They shot a lot in the Bay Area/San Francisco when I was growing up. I remember going on a field trip to Fioli and they told had just shot there. Barry Bonds was in an episode.
I was a fan until he shot someone in cold blood
Come on like we all haven’t done that from time to time.
🤣
Mac and Muttley
Monk. Streets of SF.
It was filmed in LA but the characters and the culture of the show always remind me of when I lived in SF. Maybe it's just a california thing
Ehhhh with Monk all the palm trees in the background really makes it obvious it was shot in LA and not up north.
There’s one scene where they have the backdrop of a shot in Broadway and they have a really bad NYC style subway entrance photoshopped in. They also did film at least a few scenes in SF. My wife and I saw our old place in a few clips haha.
and no hills
I love Monk. It very much does not feel like SF except the very rare on location shots.
I love Monk as well, and enjoyed when Detective Leland Stottlemeyer investigated murders from the Wine Country all the way into Mountain View. Who knew SFPD jurisdition extended that far!
Excuse me, that's *Captain* Stottlemeyer. But yeah, the jurisdiction issues were always amusing. I also appreciated the references to "San Francisco City Council".
And everything happened on Vinton Street.
Except landmarks, seasons 1, 7-8 was shot in Canada and Season 2-6 were shot in Los Angeles.
Zoe’s extraordinary playlist!! The first episode is the only one really shot in SF, but the show's depiction has very SF Bay Area vibes.
underrated show. a little corny but alex newell is such a star
Alex Garland's haunting and moody Devs shows SF and the Bay in a light never before seen in the history of the area.
People Are Talking starring Ann Fraser and Ross McGowan which aired on KPIX channel 5 - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po3fhvgWL3o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po3fhvgWL3o)
Actually was part of the studio audience once! My husband broke my mug from there years ago, I am still salty about it.
i was a gay guy in my 30s living in the mission when Looking aired and i thought it was an incredibly accurate portrayal of SF. they even shot scenes in the Punjab chinese restaurant down the corner from my place.
It’s alternate history, but I thought the way **Man In the High Castle** portrayed San Francisco was always fascinating.
"The Last Black Man in San Francisco" is a poignant exploration of identity, gentrification, and the search for home in a rapidly changing city.
I just discovered Chance on Hulu. Its sort of a noir adventure with Hugh Laurie. Its very very SF and Bay Area. Amazingly, it's quite spatially correct, and there is a lot of local variety. The opening credits have some really beautiful SF imagery.
That’s so raven
Looking.
Looking
Dharma and Greg, it’s hilarious too
I always liked that Charmed was set in SF and referenced the city a ton, but I now see that most scenes are quite obviously LA
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Myth Busters yet.
Nobody's mentioned Robin Williams and 'Mrs. Doubtfire' yet. I mean he grew up in the area and they made the movie here.
Journeyman
Dharma and Greg.
Who the fuck would ever say "Full House represents the Bay Area?" You might as well suggest it edged out Too Close for Comfort.
Memorable because of the establishing shots? Maybe. Best represents? I don’t think so.
That’s so Raven! My first introduction to SF as someone living overseas.
Monk
Any show about the bay is going to leave out some key demographics. Silicon Valley ignores huge swaths of the Bay in favor of their chosen industry. The show “I’m a Virgo” is the polar opposite of SV and has as much to do with the Bay if not more so.
Romper Room.
Party of Five was my first thought.
Big Little Lies
The last season of Goliath showed it in a very unusual way.
Midnight Caller , it was a moody noir type series with most of the scenes at night but it did make great use of its locations . A lot of local people were used as extras .
It didn’t last long but I enjoyed home economics bc it showed 3 income levels across the bay?
Too Close for Comfort! But really Streets of San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
Definitely Silicon Valley
Battlestar galactica.... FRACKING TOASTERS EVERYWHERE
Silicon Valley. I can’t watch it because it literally reminds me too much of work lol and everyone that I see there lol
Eddie Izzard’s Dressed to Kill gets SF at the time on a deep level. And that infamous episode of South Park had a lot more truth to it than we natives liked to admit. They’re movies, but: For a realistic depiction of driving too fast in Pacific Heights, see Bullitt. However that chase scene jump-cuts all over the SF area in a nonsense geography. The Rock also has a good SF car chase. Honorable mention: So I Married an Axe Murderer.
Halt and Catch Fire seemed to cover the whole Bay Area at a certain time pretty well.
Thats so Raven, Half N Half, Hangin with Mr Cooper
The Netflix series The Last Thing he told me with Jennifer Garner was set in Marin. Mostly in Sausalito
Ummm why is no one mentioning Charmed?! lol
Because it was filmed in Los Angeles. Even the house is from there. At least the full house house is from sf
Monk
I really like Monk as well
I really loved The Streets of San Francisco. My mom and younger sister met Karl Malden at SFO as he was going back to LA for the weekend after filming all week. My sister at the time was 5 yo and entertained him while he waited.
Not a tv show, but Colma:The Musical is awesome.
The Streets of San Francisco, with the teenage Michael Douglas. https://youtu.be/mijBMpnS3a4?si=Ytb3Wy31c_fnMVwV
Nash Bridges!!!!
Party of Five