'The Simpsons' and 'Silicon Valley' and when TV showrunners avoid creative challenges

It's always surprising when you hear people behind successful TV shows confess they're out of ideas.

I was thinking about this when the creators of HBO's "Silicon Valley" sheepishly admitted that issues of sexism and harassment in the tech world won't be incorporated into the show this season. "We certainly aren't like, 'Oh, let's not talk about that,'" showrunner Alec Berg told The Hollywood Reporter last month. "We talk about it all the time. The lack of hitting it head-on just comes down to the fact that we haven't done a great job of finding the definitive satirical take on it."

That's quite a bar they've set for themselves. I'm not sure even the show's most ardent fans expect a definitive satirical take on any subject, but you can see how this kind of framing lets the creators off the hook.

Creative paralysis isn't something you usually see TV writers cop to, but something similar is happening on "The Simpsons."

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