{"id":8652,"date":"2026-09-07T17:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T17:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8652"},"modified":"2026-09-07T17:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T17:06:11","slug":"cbs-named-its-new-legal-drama-cupertino-some-locals-barely-recognize-their-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8652","title":{"rendered":"CBS named its new legal drama \u2018Cupertino.\u2019 Some locals barely recognize their city"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p>At first glance, the trailer for the new CBS show \u201cCupertino\u201d touts a zesty legal drama: charming lawyers, high-stakes cases, feel-good background music.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8650\">Pac-12 power rankings: Mixed results from Week 1 while Boise State plants its flag in the playoff race<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But residents say the trailer\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p><span><iframe allowfullscreen=\"true\" class=\"youtube-player\" height=\"360\" loading=\"lazy\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0jWymvJolAM?version=3&amp;rel=1&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;fs=1&amp;hl=en-US&amp;autohide=2&amp;wmode=transparent\" style=\"border:0;\" width=\"640\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cCupertino is one of the most diverse communities in the Bay Area,\u201d said Councilmember Ray Wang, after seeing the trailer. \u201cTo not include a cross-section of our demographic into the script is insensitive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cupertino is home to tech giant Apple, and outsiders may recognize the name as the default location on their newly activated iPhone\u2019s Weather app. Roughly 70% of Cupertino\u2019s 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 \u2014 about $35,500 more than the median in Santa Clara County.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not just the lack of Asian presence that makes \u201cCupertino\u201d unfamiliar. Lee Kopp, who lives near the city\u2019s border with San Jose, said he watched the trailer and didn\u2019t see any real footage of Cupertino\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCupertino\u201d 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\u2019s description reads.<\/p>\n<p>Colter is best known for playing Luke Cage in Marvel\u2019s cinematic universe, while fans may recognize Keller for her roles in FX\u2019s \u201cLegion\u201d and \u201cFargo.\u201d Golden Globe- and Emmy-nominated creators Robert and Michelle King are the co-showrunners of \u201cCupertino.\u201d The Kings didn\u2019t 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, \u201cThe Good Wife\u201d and its spinoffs \u201cThe Good Fight\u201d and \u201cElsbeth.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>CBS lists Colter, Keller, Ella Stiller, Busy Philipps, Ren\u00e9e Elise Goldsberry and Nik Dodani among the show\u2019s 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\u2019s predominantly Asian population.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8648\">Two men reported dead at Burning Man festival<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Since the trailer\u2019s launch, concerns about how it represents Cupertino\u2019s 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. \u201cHere, I fixed it,\u201d he wrote in an X post.<\/p>\n<p>In the post, he wrote that the city\u2019s 70% Asian population is a \u201crunning joke\u201d in Silicon Valley because of \u201ccomedic subtle-asian-traits effects,\u201d including boba shops outnumbering coffee shops and weekend traffic jams near the Asian markets such as 99 Ranch Market.<\/p>\n<p>Kopp said the trailer looks OK, but finds the Silicon Valley gag \u201credundant.\u201d He recently finished watching \u201cThe Audacity,\u201d 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+.<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m hoping they bring a fresh look to \u2018Cupertino,\u2018 and not make it look like the bottom scum of the richest people in the world,\u201d Kopp said.<\/p>\n<p>Then there are some who say they don\u2019t take the trailer too seriously \u2014 or literally.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a fictional show designed for a wider viewing audience across the nation, not a documentary,\u201d said Clinton, a Cupertino resident who asked that his last name not be used. \u201cI 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\u2019s a positive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8646\">King Charles clarifies status of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, after their return to the UK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>CBS did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Noticeably absent from the trailer are Asian lead characters and shots of familiar neighborhoods, leading residents to wonder how the city will be portrayed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>CBS named its new legal drama \u2018Cupertino.\u2019 Some locals barely recognize their city - 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