‘Pirates’ Skewers Silicon Valley Barons

Theirs was the great race--the fierce rivalry--of the computer revolution, and by all accounts, it got pretty ugly.

The stories of Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs come to the small screen in the decidedly unauthorized “Pirates of Silicon Valley,” debuting Sunday on TNT with Anthony Michael Hall as a blank-faced, zombie nerd Gates and Noah Wyle as a blissed-out hippie turned fire-breathing corporate monster Jobs.

As it looks back over more than two decades of computer innovations, “Pirates” provides a welcome refresher in history that has transformed our lives. Some of these details are well-known, such as Jobs and technical-whiz pal Steve Wozniak (Joey Slotnick) building the Apple I prototype in Jobs’ parents’ garage. Others are rib-tickling surprises; for instance, young Gates challenging a colleague to a late-night bulldozer race.

Writer-director Martyn Burke says he has meticulously researched and cross-referenced everything in his movie. What he hasn’t done, however, is establish a consistent tone. Parts of his program play like a straightforward History Channel feature; others briefly approach the comic amplification of such based-on-true-events movies as “Barbarians at the Gate” or his own “Pentagon Wars.”

“Pirates” would be a lot more entertaining if it contained more of the latter, as when Wozniak, in a bit of fantasy narration, stands inside a computer screen and reaches up to touch its graphic interfaces to demonstrate how they work.

The story’s framing device is truly inspired, however. It juxtaposes Jobs’ legendary 1984 Macintosh ad--which depicted the smashing of a huge monitor bearing a Big Brother figure’s image--with a giant-screen, Big Brother-ish Gates towering above Jobs during the 1997 announcement that mighty Microsoft would invest millions in faltering Apple.

Ultimately, both Gates and Jobs come across here as the robber barons of the late 20th century--as dueling egomaniacs who have bullied, lied and stolen their way to fame and fortune. And in this telling, there’s little question about whether the robbers would rob one other.

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* “Pirates of Silicon Valley” debuts Sunday at 8 p.m. on TNT, repeating at 10 p.m. and midnight. The network has rated it TV-14-D-L-S (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14, with advisories for suggestive dialogue, coarse language and sex).