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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)

#41

Post by seneca »

I thought Halt and Catch Fire was fairly well known, especially in the tech world.

Season 1 was absolutely killer. I like that they tried to capture different eras per season, but subsequent seasons got progressively weaker.

I still think Gordon's final scene is one of the best pieces of writing in TV drama history. Took my breath away the first time I saw it.

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

#42

Post by chucksmash »

Sebguer wrote: post #11
dvrp wrote: post #10

It’s great but it ain’t no Mr. Robot.

One is a deeply human drama, the other is a spy thriller. Not sure why you'd even make the comparison.

They ran contemporaneously and tended to come up on the same lunch table conversations.

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

#43

Post by tptacek »

29athrowaway wrote: post #7

The first seasons were excellent, the latter seasons not so much.

Seasons 3 and 4 did a really good job of capturing what it was like being in the industry and in SFBA in the mid/late 1990s, better than anything I've seen. I worked at McAfee (then NETA) at the time and the MCAF-ish stuff was uncanny; the last gasp of cubicle culture in the software product industry.

I liked the storytelling in it, but, like I said earlier, it's pretty Six Feet Under-ish, in that as it progresses it is less and less about the original concept of the show and more about the relationships between characters built up over years of episodes. Whether that's a good or bad thing for you depends in part on how much fan service you want; it's why I find Mr. Robot completely unwatchable.

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

#44

Post by 3abiton »

bane wrote: post #25

It starts as a kind of okay near-real alternate history of early computing in the Silicon Prairie, and ends with some really powerful storytelling about the fragility of humanity. Totally worth a watch.

It captured a bit the feeling of being at the start of the computer boom in 60s-70s. The partnernship between the 2 male protagonists was central till the end of show (evolving through different phases). The show was great, it went in very unexpected directions later on.

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

#46

Post by segmondy »

seneca wrote: post #41

I thought Halt and Catch Fire was fairly well known, especially in the tech world. Season 1 was absolutely killer. I like that they tried to capture different eras per season, but subsequent seasons got progressively weaker. I still think Gordon's final scene is one of the best pieces of writing in TV drama history. Took my breath away the first time I saw it.

It's fairly well known to some of us. It's one of the few shows I own DVDs of.

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

#47

Post by arscan »

IBCNU wrote: post #2

And as I understand it loosely based on the fantastic and seminal book Soul of a New Machine. I had a great EM once who said I need to read it because nothing has changed in 40 years, and I keep a copy on my desk. Touching as well, as it's on Joe MacMillan's desk in the final scene of third season. What's so great about it is: - mushroom theory of management works - trust new graduates and juniors to win by not under…

My father was an unnamed DG marketing executive in the book, who joked that his greatest career regret was asking Kidder to be unnamed in case the book wasn’t any good (it won Kidder the Pulitzer). I’ve been meaning to go through his old notebooks, as he took detailed notes on everything, to see if there is anything left from that era.

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

#48

Post by seneca »

leonflexo wrote: post #5

Great show and fantastic music. This show and Driver were two soundtracks that captured that early/mid 2010s vibe for me personally.

Absolutely. One of those shows where I went to check what the songs were playing in specific scene often, and ended up with lots of new tracks added to play lists. Whoever did their music selection was top notch.

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

#49

Post by itsnowandnever »

imglorp wrote: post #17
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…

More recently, I loved how he killed it in Foundation. Another great casting for a great actor.

foundation has an incredible cast but even among such talent he's a clear outlier
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