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Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

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Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#141

Post by alexjplant »

ai_critic wrote: post #70
tptacek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Season 1 is Soul of a New Machine-ish, but about personal computing, not minicomputers, and is set in Texas. Season 2 is roughly about BBSs and Compuserve, and still in Texas. Season 3 is about the early commercial Internet, same characters, SFBA. Season 4 is about the Yahoo era of the Internet and about venture capital, also SFBA.

The problem with it is that it is ahistorical enough in the tech that some things just don't work. The show tackles stuff about like a decade before it was actually relevant in market, and that has subtle problems that give the business stuff an uncanny-valley feel. Still a fun drama though.

During my first watch of this show there were around eleventy kabillion times that I reflexively shouted "that's not how that worked!" at the TV (and I'm a 90s kid with cursory retrocomputing knowledge). I say "reflexively" because I wasn't actually mad at these technical inaccuracies - they were largely in service of a good plot and weren't "SVU" or "CSI" levels of ridiculous.

So yes, those C64s were running software 5-10 years ahead of their time because the writers felt like it and were able to get away with such.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#142

Post by rurban »

autoexec wrote: post #132

> This piece contains spoilers for Halt and Catch Fire. I'm glad they put this at the top. I instantly closed the tab. On the off chance that the title is remotely true, I wouldn't want to have the show ruined for me before I even saw an episode. For others who have never heard of this show, here's a little I picked up from carefully scanning over the wikipedia page: It's a AMC period drama about the early days of PC…

Then you are the only one who haven't watched it. Go watch it now! It's fantastic (at least the first Compaq seasons)

Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#145

Post by EPWN3D »

beart wrote: post #92

I've heard many great things but have not been able to make it past the classroom scene in the first episode. I love both of the actors in other media, but I find the dialogue in these opening scenes makes me feel..embarrassed? I have similar feelings about other shows and movies at times where I just have to turn them off because of the way the characters are behaving. I think it just ties directly into some anxiety…

Had the exact same reaction to that exact scene. Just couldn't get past it. It wasn't as bad as when I tried to watch Big Bang Theory (which multiple people assured me that I'd love), but it was in that ballpark.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#146

Post by jldugger »

danielvaughn wrote: post #3

Lee Pace's performance in that show is one of my all time favorites. It's incredibly hard to play a charismatic marketing guru because in some sense, you're not acting. In a given scene, the character might be trying to convince people around him of some crazy idea, but if he hasn't convinced you, the viewer, then the entire illusion falls apart. So he really has to do in real life what he's pretending to do on scree…

Sadly, Season 1 Joe is just incohesive. Like, you want there to be some structural reason behind his madness and there just isn't any, because there's too much of crazy. Season 2 tries to walk much of that back.

I haven't yet seen season 3 and beyond, but it's clear the OP blogger agrees:

> The best thing the show’s writers ever did was realize that Joe wasn’t the most interesting character.

Like, Lee is a good actor for sure, he was just given a poorly story crafted role.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#148

Post by walterbell »

metamet wrote: post #81
Slow_Hand wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny that this came up today. Last night I started re-watching the series after several years. Just this afternoon I was reflecting on how genuinely charismatic Lee Pace's Joe McMillen is. You really feel it. Even when we know he's a manipulative sonuvabitch. It's mesmerizing. You have to admire his ability to spin shit into gold. The man has vision. There's a sequence around S01E07 that I'm looking forward to reach…

You're making me really want to start a rewatch. It's shocking how few people have seen this show, let along watched it. Part of that probably has to do with how inaccessible it is on streaming. It's only readily available on AMC+. And no one has AMC+. This is one of those shows that would likely shoot to the top if Netflix got the rights to it and even did a mild push. It's genuinely peak prestige TV.

40-episode box set is $30 ($16 today) on Apple TV.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#149

Post by dakolli »

mikestorrent wrote: post #127
dakolli wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk man, the entire second season gives me that feeling of embarrassment, I couldn't finish the show. The first season was alright, but honestly the second season is some of the cheesiest/worst storytelling/acting I've ever seen.

Interesting how this thread has people saying they love the acting and people saying they hate it. I can't say as I found the acting itself to be amazing outside of a few scenes, but I never found it cringe enough to not want to see more. It'd be cool to understand more about what triggers this differently for different folks. A related thing I find difficult to watch is when characters are in impending danger too of…

It might be more of an issue with the story telling than the actors performance themselves. For instance the changes in Joe and Gordon's characters was confusing. Gordon goes from being shy nerd to reckless coke addict, like huh.. Joe kinda becomes a new age softy. The hacker house vibes were off, a bunch of 20-30 year old playing tag and having nerf gun wars.. okay, I guess. Its just very hard to suspend belief and get into the story. As someone else mentioned, it gives off Hackers vibes. It feels like the writers weren't really familiar early tech and were just going off what they thought it would be like.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

#150

Post by tptacek »

jldugger wrote: post #146
danielvaughn wrote: post #3

Lee Pace's performance in that show is one of my all time favorites. It's incredibly hard to play a charismatic marketing guru because in some sense, you're not acting. In a given scene, the character might be trying to convince people around him of some crazy idea, but if he hasn't convinced you, the viewer, then the entire illusion falls apart. So he really has to do in real life what he's pretending to do on scree…

Sadly, Season 1 Joe is just incohesive. Like, you want there to be some structural reason behind his madness and there just isn't any, because there's too much of crazy. Season 2 tries to walk much of that back. I haven't yet seen season 3 and beyond, but it's clear the OP blogger agrees: > The best thing the show’s writers ever did was realize that Joe wasn’t the most interesting character. Like, Lee is a good actor…

His character makes much more sense in later seasons.
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