This is one of the vanishingly small instances of actually representing the tech industry well in media, even if there's a lot of exaggeration and they elide the boring stuff. There are so many scenes in that gave me deja vu. Everyone gets treated even handedly, no 2 dimensional heroes and villains, just a load of people trying to build something while their egos get in the way. I'd give it the highest recommendation possible, representation is important!
Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)
261–270 of 408 posts
Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)
#262Earlier 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.
We're in the minority, but I'm with you. It felt like in the first season, the tech and era took center stage to the point it was accurate enough to be an enjoyable element of the show. After that, they just wanted to rush and touch on different eras and the tech and eras were no longer the center stage. However, the stories were too cringey and couldn't carry it. And I'm just not a fan of Lee Pace. His deliver is on…
You and others are both right: the first season is better in the "tech authenticity" dimension but worse as a script (literary dimension); with seasons 2+3 it's the other way round.
Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)
#263Binge watched it. I think the first 2 seasons were great. Lee Pace did an awesome performance recently in Asimov's Foundation. Mackenzie Davis, another lead in the show, demonstrated good potential but she seems not to get much afterward (Terminator, Station 11 etc)
Station Eleven is, all around, the best thing ever created. Every aspect of it is perfect.
Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)
#264HACF is a goodie but there's a lot of great shows no one's heard of. In an effort to sing the song of underappreciated works of greatness... Patriot - a CIA hitman who writes folk songs about his exploits imdb.com/title/tt4687882/ Counterpart - not a multiverse, just a biverse imdb.com/title/tt4643084/ Scavengers Reign - Robinson Crusoe by way of a nature documentary of a very bizarre alien planet. imdb.com/title/tt2…
great recommndations, Patriot is amazing dark comedy with great atmosphere, SR is great semi-documentary about alien planet ecosystem, very peaceful, didn't like CSE and Counterpart though
I would suggest also Devs just for the visuals and Tales from the Loop for the most peaceful TV show I've ever seen
Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)
#265"HCF":
"In computer engineering, Halt and Catch Fire, known by the assembly language mnemonic HCF, is an idiom referring to a computer machine code instruction that causes the computer's central processing unit (CPU) to cease meaningful operation, typically requiring a restart of the computer. It originally referred to a fictitious instruction in IBM System/360 computers (introduced in 1964), making a joke about its numerous non-obvious instruction mnemonics." (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire_(computing)
What other films/series are "must watch" material for geeks?
- War Games
- Silicon Valley
- The Social Network
- The Intern
- Mr. Robot
- Black Mirror
- Hackers
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- ...?
Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Patriot is amazing, more people should watch it, everyone I know who has was enthralled by it. Counterpart was great but structure made it hard for to watch knowing it'd been cancelled. Scavengers Reign was great; I couldn't get into Common Side Effects. Evil is exactly the Catholic X-Files, which is an amazing concept, but by the end of the 2nd season it is all the way off the rails and hurtling into a canyon. Given…
Patriot is my single favorite show of all time. I absolutely adore it and every preposterous, absurd line. So many quotable moments. Vantasner Danger Meridian. Structural Dynamics of Flow. The attaché badge. So many phenomenal scenes. I’m not surprised it didn’t get more traction with the general public but it was unafraid to take some serious and weird risks. But they pay off in spades for me!
Are you me? Patriot is amazing and I will never stop recommending it no matter how many dumbfounded looks I get.
I have a framed "Structural Dynamics of Flow" poster on my wall in my home office, visible on Teams calls. Only 1 person has ever recognized the reference.
Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)
#267HACF is a goodie but there's a lot of great shows no one's heard of. In an effort to sing the song of underappreciated works of greatness... Patriot - a CIA hitman who writes folk songs about his exploits imdb.com/title/tt4687882/ Counterpart - not a multiverse, just a biverse imdb.com/title/tt4643084/ Scavengers Reign - Robinson Crusoe by way of a nature documentary of a very bizarre alien planet. imdb.com/title/tt2…
Rubicon I always add Rubicon to these types of lists. Amazing spy series.
Rubicon is excellent. I was disappointed at the time it only got one season, but in retrospect it worked out okay because it's one season done very very well.
Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)
#268I really enjoyed that show. The last line of dialogue in the last episode is the same as the first line in the first episode IIRC.
Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)
#269I just finished my third run through the series. There have been a lot of movies and shows about how tech "grew up" in the 80s and 90s, but this one feels closest to home for me. It was an incredible time to live through. Everybody was trying all kinds of stuff, fundamental stuff not stuff around the edges, and nobody knew what would hit and what wouldn't. Some kid in East Minnesota had the same shot as some guy in Stanford. There was very much a Wild West feel to it.
With apologies for going all old-guy, today it seems that whatever you do, you end up in some walled garden along a pre-programmed path. Can you write an independent iOS app without spending a lot of time screwing around with Apple? I don't know. It does not look like a worthwhile thing to spend my time on.
Everything you do today, it's like you automatically end up on some set of train tracks somebody else has made. Maybe they let your train run, maybe not. Maybe they like what you're doing and let your train run like the wind so that they can copy it all.
HCF reminded me that there was a time before all of this. Good memories.
Agentic coding may be an even bigger change, and it might kick off a new time like that. Too soon to tell. I sure hope so. I can't help but notice there are a lotta folks looking to get their hooks into the system.
Re: Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)
#270[flagged]