CBS named its new legal drama ‘Cupertino.’ Some locals barely recognize their city

At first glance, the trailer for the new CBS show “Cupertino” touts a zesty legal drama: charming lawyers, high-stakes cases, feel-good background music.

But residents say the trailer’s bears little resemblance to the actual city, particularly its predominantly Asian population, leading them to wonder just how the city will be portrayed when the show premieres Oct. 8.

“Cupertino is one of the most diverse communities in the Bay Area,” said Councilmember Ray Wang, after seeing the trailer. “To not include a cross-section of our demographic into the script is insensitive.”

Cupertino is home to tech giant Apple, and outsiders may recognize the name as the default location on their newly activated iPhone’s Weather app. Roughly 70% of Cupertino’s population is Asian and more than half of its residents are foreign-born, according to U.S. Census data compiled by the city. The families who live there are among the wealthiest in the Bay Area, with a median household income of $199,778, from 2017 to 2021 — about $35,500 more than the median in Santa Clara County.

It’s not just the lack of Asian presence that makes “Cupertino” unfamiliar. Lee Kopp, who lives near the city’s border with San Jose, said he watched the trailer and didn’t see any real footage of Cupertino’s iconic tech buildings, like the Apple spaceship near North Wolfe Road. Kopp said he is within walking distance of the spaceship and once did training films for Apple. Filming for the show was reportedly done in New York and New Jersey, according to media outlets in those areas.

“Cupertino” follows lawyer Michael Price (Mike Colter) who has been cheated out of his stock options by his former employer at a tech startup. Refusing to back down, he teams up with recently fired attorney Olivia Siffre (Rachel Keller) to represent those taken advantage of by the tech elite and help them fight back, the show’s description reads.

Colter is best known for playing Luke Cage in Marvel’s cinematic universe, while fans may recognize Keller for her roles in FX’s “Legion” and “Fargo.” Golden Globe- and Emmy-nominated creators Robert and Michelle King are the co-showrunners of “Cupertino.” The Kings didn’t stray too far from their roots: Robert is from San Jose and attended Archbishop Mitty High School. They are the brains behind other CBS legal shows, “The Good Wife” and its spinoffs “The Good Fight” and “Elsbeth.”

CBS lists Colter, Keller, Ella Stiller, Busy Philipps, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Nik Dodani among the show’s principal cast. Dodani, an Indian American actor, plays Vikram Malhotra. But the trailer centers on Colter and Keller, and residents interviewed for this story said it offers little sense of Cupertino’s predominantly Asian population.

Since the trailer’s launch, concerns about how it represents Cupertino’s Asian population have spilled onto Reddit threads and YouTube comments. Recently, Yishan Wong, former CEO of Reddit, went so far as to create a public AI-generated YouTube trailer that replaces all the main characters with Asian leads. “Here, I fixed it,” he wrote in an X post.

In the post, he wrote that the city’s 70% Asian population is a “running joke” in Silicon Valley because of “comedic subtle-asian-traits effects,” including boba shops outnumbering coffee shops and weekend traffic jams near the Asian markets such as 99 Ranch Market.

Kopp said the trailer looks OK, but finds the Silicon Valley gag “redundant.” He recently finished watching “The Audacity,” a darkly comedic drama that also pokes fun at Silicon Valley high-tech companies and their workers. The show premiered in April and was created by Jonathan Glatzer for AMC and AMC+.

“I’m hoping they bring a fresh look to ‘Cupertino,‘ and not make it look like the bottom scum of the richest people in the world,” Kopp said.

Then there are some who say they don’t take the trailer too seriously — or literally.

“It’s a fictional show designed for a wider viewing audience across the nation, not a documentary,” said Clinton, a Cupertino resident who asked that his last name not be used. “I do not care if the demographics on the show do not match the demographics of Cupertino. I think so long as it does not wrongly portray the city as a really bad place, it’s a positive.”

CBS did not respond to a request for comment.