I am so hooked on this show! It appeals to both the business man in me and the nerd in me :)
This show had big shoes to fill replacing breaking bad in it's time slot. So far, it's doing well. Very, very character driven, yet in a way that isn't so slow that it bores me.
I've waited a long time to say anything about Halt and Catch Fire. It seems too easy or pointless to use a word like "underrated." It's hard to say the most compelling aspects are "subtle." No matter how many times I try to dismiss the whisper "masterpiece," it still returns. This isn't a show that wastes time trying to "work its angle" well enough that you get cheap glimpses into "the computer world." It doesn't try to impress you with talk that makes you think of a snobbish adviser they consult with too often. It doesn't try to make profound statements about family or entrepreneurship. Halt and Catch Fire is the grind. It's the thing that gets you to the thing.
I crave entertainment that makes me think. Halt puts me into a kind of meditation. I can adopt the skin of practically any character and feel like I know how I'd react to any other. I want to forgive and grow and try and disappear as they did. I want to root for them, and be cut deeper and deeper each time I try to believe again. I want to feel like my home is where my heart is, and my heart can reside in so many people and everything we've tried to create together. This show can let you feel a dynamic and chaotic beauty and drive for every ounce of the pain it takes to do so.
I've reached a point where I can't find anymore words to wrap the swelling in my chest with that will quell what I'm going to miss now that it's over. What these characters have, what this story shows, is human perfection. Bloody, confusing, tumultuous and heartfelt perfection. While the show can end, what it represents is everything I want my life to be, and I feel humbled that they were able to strike the chord so soundly.
Well, here we are, another show that finished its run. I'm sad that it's over, but at the same time happy that it got the run it got. I remember I started watching it on a whim and now, 40 episodes later, I have this "I'm so glad on that day, I just went and started it". Because whenever you get to think like that, you know how meaningful a show was.
This show has inspired me to a level that is hard to describe, especially seasons 3 and 4. I'm now working on my own website, and while it's not the only thing that led me to do it, it is definitely the one that gave me the final push. Expect another Comet soon.
Goodbye Joe, Gordon, Cameron, Donna & Bos! (and everyone else)
Love this show. I was hoping for a third season, but it doesn't look likely. Its a shame. I started in computers in 1979 and lived this time period in my career. Believe me, it WAS very much like this. Technology was exploding in the 80's and I witnessed all this come about, including the cut-throat moves of businesses, particularly, IBM, Microsoft, Atari, Commodore (yes I said Atari), Compaq, Apple, and many many other smaller companies that no longer exist. It was a revolution in the computer industry, going from Unix based mainframe type computers to independent PCs. It changed the landscape of the day. It was an incredible time and this show allows me to relive this time in our history. Back when us "techs" performed component level board repairs. Don't see that anymore either.
Yes, the second season seemed to have less direction then the first, but guess what....so did we. There was so much going on and so many new choices it was hard to choose the right path. Remember, there was no standard at the time. This show was one of my favorites and has a lot of potential.
Renewed for a fourth and final season! Glad we'll get to see the story ending on its own terms..
Obsessed with this show!
I'm actually stunned by how good this show is. I heard about it from watching a documentary on how Compaq started. I'm a computer guy by trade and I actually find a lot of what the first season talks about to be very relatable. I have met people like the hardware engineer, Clark. I have met people the software engineer, Cameron. I have even met people like the salesmen, Joe. I love that Clark's the one building the computer but his wife, Donna, is the brilliant one. The characters feel real to me. Cardiff Electric is loosely based on Compaq. To me this feels less like really interesting fiction and more like a dramatized documentary. I just finished the first season and I would heartily and without reservation recommend this show to anyone. I don't even like Lee Pace and he's, quite frankly, stunning in this role.
This is a really awesome show. I don't know about the industry but from a lay perspective it seems like a very fine portrait - and the characters and the way the evolve throughout the show is amazing. For computers users and nerds such as myself that grew up with the developments portrayed in the series it is also very nostalgic in the absolutely most positive sense of that word. Simply lovely.
Loving the look, the feel, the cast even the audio is awesome. If you are in any way into computers or software, go for it.
Currently watching the second season and I'm in love with this show. If you guys like computers you should definitely check it out.
Good news everyone:
"AMC has ordered a second season of Halt and Catch Fire."
I certainly am looking forward to that.
I LOVE IT. AMC bang on again with a new big thing. And it's only the first season. My problem is that sometimes I try to liken every new show with Breaking Bad and so far, I can see a few similarities! Which makes this great. Gordon is my favourite character obviously...
It is very surreal to watch a show about the cut-throat and sexy world of the computer industry. An industry I work in, and I've never had to cut throats or bang my colleagues. (Maybe it was like this in the old days, but I doubt it).
This must be what cops and doctors feel like when they watch TV.
Great show regardless.
Gonna be brief with my comments for any shows that I finish since I am now a busy person.
This is one amazing TV show. I'd say of all the Mad Men bastards (Masters of Sex and Manhattan are examples), this one actually turned into something special and remained consistent throughout its whole run. These characters are absolutely wonderful and I love how they massively change into different individuals per season (Joe starts off as 80s Don Draper, where Gordon is a mellow Walter White, yet by the final season neither fits these images). Cameron Howe is the real hero of this series and her partnership with Donna really showed how two women could carry a series (for seasons 2 and 3, it was really their stories that felt like the main bits where Joe and Gordon were B stories). Boss is what I would want of a dad. Amazing performances and amazing writing (and so many touching dorky moments like Joe with the flashlights in the rainstorm that show this series was about dorks embracing their quirkiness).
I'm sad it's leaving Netflix (which is why I decided to binge it), this feels like a terrific show for people to discover on that platform but knowing how crowded Netflix is with its own originals now, perhaps the few AMC+ subscribers may discover this tiny gem of the 2010's (I didn't do a Best of the decade list, but if I did, this would've been on it or at least been an honorable mention).
Great show love it
Check it out
Silly con valley is absolutely junk compared to this show!
The atmospheri the actors, everything so well chosen. Best show off this kind love it! Unlike sillicon valley this one is not teens only.
So genius and still not renewed.
Looking forward for the third season ... and the fourth, the fifth ...
Watch this show! Doesn't matter if youre a geek or a drama lover. Just watch it!
This sequence. This show. <3
gordon was my favorite and he had this terrible end! i want season 2!!
My favorite series. I kind of lived it, as an outlier with IBM during that time period, always a bit envious of the people I met that had these type of riskier jobs.
Hands down best show. love the plot and the acting is spectacular. First show in a very long time that I can't wait for the next episode and go through withdraws at the end of each season.
Most underrated show on TV right now. Brilliantly written, well-cast, and character driven. The way they have depicted the 80's is spot-on.
currently watching the 1st season and i'm already in love with the show
OMG, season 4 is finally hear. Can't wait!!!
@sean It's a pretty solid show so far. :)
Having watched the whole show it a solid drama, with the last season being the weakest one. Whole heartedly recommend it.
Only watched Season 1 and man, it had some TERRIBLE episodes with absolute trash writing. Stop comparing it to masterpieces like Breaking Bad. There are no trash episodes or seasons in Mr Robot or The Wire.
It starts off with literally introducing the Mary Sue female programmer wonderkind (feminism doesnt care about reality or history) and I was tempted to stop watching right there.
After that, the first 3-4 episodes are actually decent before taking a nosedive.
Gordon is a whiny kid that changes direction in every effing episode and makes absolutely no sense.
Joe is supposed to be the great mystery man with an unknown past, and is probably the most interesting one of the bunch even tho he's painted as a sociopath early on - just to take a 180° and discover his heart later on. Again, realism, schealism.
Season 1 hits rock bottom with episode "The Giant". Holy mother of Jesus, what a huge pile of steaming whatever.
It's like the writers looked at great TV shows and tried to emulate good scripts by stiching together tropes and dramas and revelations they could think of but simply lacked any skill doing so.
End of season 1 is a little better, but still. Nowhere above 7/10.
If there's a masterpiece waiting in Halt and Catch Fire, it's not in season 1. According to critics, s3 and s4 are awesome - not sure if I ever make it so far tho seeing how s2 apparently "focuses on its female protagonists" instead of focusing on quality writing or consistent character arcs. Sigh.
I started watching this show when I was in the startup scene but lost touch after about midway through season 1. Having left my company and taken a year or so to myself, I picked up the show again from the beginning and all I can say is it was an incredibly cathartic experience. I saw myself in each of the characters at various points and watching their journey and evolution over a decade or so helped me grow, develop as a person, and come to terms with my past. Easily one of the best shows I've watched from end to end. It's a blessing when a show has a planned ending and spends the final season unwinding than trying to ramp up to one final climax. Sometimes the excitement is things returning to normalcy.
This show wasn't the thing. It's the thing that got me to the thing.
The first season was incredibly strong. Sadly the second season only has glimpses of what made the first so compelling. The Joe character is marginalised taking a back seat to a more melodramatic wider set of characters. Needless subplots that don't add anything and instead get in the way of what was originally a superbly paced show. Without the puppet master the second season sadly flounders - But don't miss out on the first.
Really enjoyed first season of this.
Can't wait for the next season !!!
Can't wait for the next season !!!
While this show chose an interesting subject and time period I can't say they delivered.
The core issue for me are easily the characters. I feel rather sorry for Lee Pace having to play Joe in this because despite being the catalyst for most of what the cast does he has no clear line and apparently nothing behind him that would drive him to be how he is (try to portray that). Gordon is rather plain and Cameron more often than not is defined by quirk because she is such a rebel(!!111). Donna was about the only one in the cast that felt like a real person despite letting herself be shoved around whenever they felt like it.
Storywise they managed to string things together after the mid point mainly thanks to their planned release date but they still managed to put a big dent into whatever they had with the last episode with absurd events, little consequences and that terrible phone company side-thing reveal... I'm not seeing how a second season will improve this so if that was the end of it I'm OK with that.
this could work of has a Movie. has a Tv show i´m not seeing it catching my attention span more then the pilot ans second episode... This sounds amazing for all the nerds out there, and this is not meant to be offensive =p
Yay, another tech related show, I'm loving that new trend and esp. the fact that this is set in the very early beginnings of it all - makes it all the more interesting.
Really curious about how this continues and the first episode was pretty darn good already (yay Lee Pace! :D)
And daaaaaaaaaamn, is that one of the best intro sequences in recent history? Pretty darn slick.
Shout by nawaBlockedParent2016-09-30T20:30:51Z
I finally got why I love this show so much. Not because of computer stuff and not because of business stuff. I love it because everyone in the show feels real. The dramatic stare and silence for a minute are absent here (well, except for Joe, but that's part of his charm). Characters act fast and natural, their small talk is believable – never once I've seen a show which portrays such things so perfectly. Hell, this is a rare kind of a show where I laugh at the jokes, not at how terrible they are.
And only after that I should mention that, yeah, there's some computer stuff and business stuff which I like too.