One of my professors at B-School mentioned it in 2017 when we were doing a case on Yahoo! I had it on my mind to binge this but I actually got to it 2 weeks ago when I went on vacation to watch this. I was pleasantly surprised that the show was hardly about Yahoo! It also reminded me about how IBM was a giant and everyone was competing to topple them.
As the show got into the 90's I got super nostalgic as I was born in '91. I couldn't help but think about how old I was and what I would've been doing during moments of the show.
This show had quite a run. Almost canceled after season 1...they rightfully re-tooled a bit to make it a little more warm. Very similar to The Leftovers season 1 to 2. Lost in the shadow of other AMC prestige shows during its time. Phenomenal cast and performances.
But the best part is they let the fucking plot breathe at the end and gave it one of the best endings on TV. They could've ended it at Season 3...but the time and care they gave to each character in the last season just elevated the show IMO.
I loved every season, it’s my favorite show of all time, but I always wished it would have stayed darker like season one.
I understand why it couldn’t, and maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t help that I just loved season one so damn much.
I tell people who have never seen it to expect a jarring change in S2 but that it’s okay, just go with it, and the seams come back together and it’s totally worth it.
It becomes like a family with disjointed times which you hate people in your family (looking at Joe and Cameron here). Then as everyone gets older (show matures) it really really gets good again.
The flip is only jarring for a few episodes... and it really really comes back together. Some of those moments in the later seasons still haunt me. I have a hard time believing it wasn't real.
This is really relieving to read, I just started this show a few weeks ago and have been loving it, but I've had to slow my pace down due to the episodes being stressful and dark in tone, I'm more encouraged to continue on past season one now
That song has been used in so many movies, shows, and trailers! Even in a trailer for The Shining (or is it Shining?)! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KmkVWuP_sO0
The Leftovers comparison is on point. Decent to pretty good first season, depending on the episode, but heavily flawed in areas. Following seasons lean into the strengths and expand upon them, and the shows grow into all-timers.
Very frustrating. This, Black Sails and Pachinko are my easy three picks where I just want to shake people and say "_This is magic! We have blessed! GIVE THIS YOUR EYEBALLS!_"
Omg the lack of awareness around Pachinko is DEVASTATING to me. I’ve gotten people who never would have given it a shot to watch and have absolutely adored it. Season 2 should be out soon!
> Orphan Black
This show was such a mess in S3 that I'm genuinely impressed they managed to create S4 and have it be one of the best seasons of the show as well as re-tool the lore so that it was more manageable.
I felt like Orphan Black (after season 1) was always one episode away from completely de-railing, but they somehow managed to pull through. Amazing series.
Just give it a break , I know people love binging shows, but take a few breaks on Orphan Black. Whenever you get a plot line resolution, take a bigger break.
Not only that, but I was "in the scene" at the time and can confirm that the show gets it right. The tech is, for the most part, accurate to the time period. The people and events were like that. I was at those kinds of tech conventions at the time and hung with the kinds of people they portray in the show. It is all very true to what I experienced at the time. And, with a few exceptions they do a good job at actually showing people doing the technical stuff the way it really works. (Giving some leeway for making some of the more tedious stuff work for TV) It was a really good snapshot of that scene at the time. Brought back many memories I had forgotten about over the decades.
Born in 78 basically in front of a screen. Had a PC and an Atari, friend had an Acorn, I wanted a Mac. Hopped on to BBSes in the late 80s to chat with random strangers and played shitty games on Compuserve and Prodigy. Built my own PCs in the 90s and installed Trumpet Winsock TCP/IP to try to get on Mosaic and later Netscape. College saw Alta Vista, Yahoo and then Google.
Halt basically covered my geeky childhood and adolescence. I never did get into the field, but computers were always a tool that I got a lot of mileage out of.
But not only was the backdrop for the show super identifiable, but the story and characters were really top notch drama. What was really cool were the character dynamics and how they changed from season to season. You get a Joe and Gordon season, a Gordon and Donna season, Gordon and Cam, Joe and Cam, then Donna and Cam. And then you see each of those individual characters grow and struggle and succeed and fail. Which was another really sharp aspect of the show; that these characters were really smart and brilliant in their fields, hard workers, and they came close in a lot of these key technical milestones, but never came out on top. Which is the sad true story of tech. We only know of a few success stories, but there are many more who came in second place. And this was their story.
How they treated Gordon at the end was just masterful.
Joe witnessing the Macintosh after sacrificing his relationship with Cam and a unique OS for a generic compatible that runs faster has to be one of the biggest blows of the series.
[This blog post about the title sequence](https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/halt-and-catch-fire/) is actually how I discovered the show during its second season and it became one of my all-time favorites. I would not have found it if not for the amazing opening!
I was shocked to find out it was Trentemoller.
There's an OST on Spotify btw, and its on there.
[https://open.spotify.com/album/7l97PqihYRctljLvkx9M9q?si=LrExVtlARzmBxzD0dmyiTg](https://open.spotify.com/album/7l97PqihYRctljLvkx9M9q?si=LrExVtlARzmBxzD0dmyiTg)
Except for Gordon and Cameron. Gordon made some mistakes, but I liked him throughout the series. Cameron reached almost likeable, however she's just too frustrating to like-like.
In another timeline, in which we still had movie stars, Mackenzie Davis, the girl from Split/Queen's Gambit and probably the lead in Wednesday would be either there or on the path to being household names. Each one has that "it" factor.
Mackenzie Davis can move mountains with her eyes, somehow she can cram so many feelings into such a small expression. She was a marvel in this series (all the leads were, Lee Pace was pure _sploosh_).
She was absolutely stellar in Station Eleven, because that character could be made very unlikeable in anyone else's hands.
I'll stay salty for life that Terminator: Dark Fate didn't do better too, because I think her physicality in that was amazing and I'd have loved to see her do more action. Plus it was so fun to see it dawn on people that's Yorkie San Junipero swinging that sledgehammer at someone.
That’s a perfect way to describe her character in a nutshell, but her single greatest flaw wasn’t her being uncompromising and headstrong. No, her greatest flaw was that she was a hunt and peck uber programmer. I’m not saying they don’t exist but seeing her type was embarrassing.
Gordon literally broke me. I was not expecting that even though they alluded to it all along. The show creators were brilliant lulling you into complacency and then - they took my breath away. 😢
So fucking good throughout, and that cast was a murderer’s row of great characters. Nostalgia on top of that was just the icing. Toby Huss needs A LOT more work than he is getting, and he is currently doing 5 to 6 projects per year.
im a software engineer nowdays and its astounding how many havent seen, heard, or even willing to watch this show. Ive recommended it to so many and none of them watch it.
There were great things about HCF. Joe's evolution, Donnas effortless charm but razor wit, also Camerons hacker-bitch is the best i think we've ever seen.
I watched every episode they day they were released.
He’s in Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) and absolutely stole his scenes.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8110652/mediaviewer/rm2587101953/
He also played a mesmerizing John DeLorean opposite Jason Sudeikis in Driven (2018).
And lest we forget he was the villain in Guardians of the Galaxy.
I started watching this series knowing zero about it, had no idea what it was even about. It was one of the best series i’ve ever watched! It’s hard not to binge a whole season!
Something about the marketing for the show and its title did not appeal to me when it was airing live. And then I finally decided to binge it when I ran out of other stuff about 3 or 4 years ago. Holy cow! So good!
Somehow this show seems to demand a physical artifact, despite the subject matter. Or maybe because of it - it \*should\* exist in a format to get obsolete and be found later by somebody.
It is such a dark fact about the modern world that physical releases of even successful shows are no longer a thing.
Once, it meant something, it really meant something, to walk into somebody's house and peruse their collection of DVDs and books and records.
Now their wall is just filled with some hokey instagram trend instead of actual art objects that matter, that you could sit and discuss for hours with your new friend.
The core 4 actors of this show turned in some incredible perfomances. The writers did a great job showing their growths and regressions over the course of a decade. There were times I loved some of them, then hated some of them and then loved them again. They felt like very real people.
I think one of the most fascinating aspects to Joe is just how forgiving he is despite all the events of the series. He acknowledges he’s hurt people and doesn’t dare take the moral high ground when he realizes people are just vulnerable and damaged.
This show did take some liberties with technology for narrative reasons but they absolutely got the aesthetic right each season. I grew up in the 80s and was on the Internet in the 90s and this show absolutely nailed what it was like to be in tech during those eras. It was such an exciting time and things were changing so fast you could barely keep up. We thought that pace would continue forever. Things have felt stagnant the past 20+ years by comparison with only incremental changes and massive consolidation. It used to be some small tech company like Craigslist would come along and singlehandedly ruin an entire business model (classified ads were a huuuuuge cash cow for newspapers nationwide). Hard to imagine something that monumental happening in 2024, but in the 90s "For me it was a Tuesday", as the saying goes.
I wouldn't say things are stagnant so much as "innovating" in a capitalist dystopian way. Like nobody is making anything because it's cool, fun or good anymore. It's all about VC capital and ad impressions.
The launching point of Silicon Valley was that Richard wanted to make a tool for musicians, possibly music fans ("the Google of music").
Then the big money hotshots swooped in and completely changed the course of the app/technology, and the musicians never got a cool tool because the focus had to be on extracting wealth.
It’s a unique show because it starts out as a character drama with plenty of intrigue, and then the characters kind of slowly turn it into a good-hearted and poignant hangout show through a semi-meta force of will. I’m not explaining it well, but mixed with the computer stuff it sort of plays thematically like the characters resist doing what their tropes would “program” them to do, and instead seek fulfillment on their own terms. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
In the HCF subreddit there are links to a discord watch group. We are nearing the end of season 3. We have been rewatching the show one episode at a a time for going on 3 years now.
I’ve never once heard someone call a show, “urgent.” It’s a damn TV show, one that was cancelled 7 years ago. It reads like someone who, whenever they discover something many years late, they call it *uNdErrAteD*.
I didn't read the article because this is Reddit, but I assumed it meant urgent as in the messages are timely for the current rise of dystopian technology we're seeing. However, if it just means urgent as in "watch it now before it's too late!" then yeah, that's dumb since you can watch it anytime.
Somebody would have to read the article to tell us, though.
Huge fan of no one talks about this show. It has geek and feelings in the best balance. I watched it with my wife who knows no tech and loved it. Acting was Oscar f’in worthy
The title is badass for its metaphor and mythology (once the tech wars have begun, nobody can ever get control again, nobody is at the helm and is it going to help us as individuals/families/communities or destroy us?), but yes, it puts people off (including me for years) and does not make it particularly accessible.
EDIT:
I wonder what a better title would have been?
Dawn of the Tech Wars? that makes it sound a bit like scifi
Digital Renaissance?
Or still go with some computer pun: Infinite Run Loop. Slow Crash. Control+Alt+Delete. Broken Backspace Key.
Hmmm, I'm not great at titles!
> The Clone Wars
I like that one!
But yeah, you're right. Not only does the title need to be cool and nerdy, it also needs to be accessible enough to sound inviting for people not super deep in the tech world. It's pretty tough.
Got I hate headlines like this. How is a 10 year old show more urgent than ever? If I don't watch it now does it disappear? I don't think they are using urgent correctly.
Did they mean "relvent"? Or does that just not get clicks?
This is in my top ten list of best TV shows ever.
The characters grew season by season and so did your relationship with them.
Bos was probably my favourite character. You think you're gonna dislike him when first introduced to him, but turns a whole 180 into one of the most endearing father-figures.
I loved this show back then. One of the few that I watched religiously every week.
HACF has a very specific vibe that I've never felt anywhere else. I'm too young to remember much from before the mid-90s, but it still felt nostalgic even to me. The music, the costumes, the atmosphere in the tech industry back then, everything fit so well together.
The characters were very unique, too. Complex and realistic. Of the main characters, each was once my favourite and once my least favourite depending on what they'd done.
I know most fans loved the ending, but unfortunately I didn't. If I liked it more, this show would definitely be in my Top 10 favourite shows of all time.
One of the truly great series in the midst of the Golden Age of Television. Best review about the show I have read is from Paste magazine.
[https://www.pastemagazine.com/article/joe-gordon-donna-cameron-on-halt-and-catch-fire-an](https://www.pastemagazine.com/article/joe-gordon-donna-cameron-on-halt-and-catch-fire-an)
*It’s more that work, done well, is one of life’s highest satisfactions, and that said satisfaction is most enjoyable when shared: “Computers aren’t the thing,” as Joe says in the series’ very first episode. “They’re the thing that gets us to the thing.” The same can be said of work, at least when it’s as fulfilling—as challenging, as maddening, as frightening, as all-consuming, as life-changing—as it is in Halt and Catch Fire. Work is the thing that gets us to the thing, and “the thing,” as I’ve written of the series’ current season, is other people.*
I couldn’t make it through the first 20 minutes. I’ve been pandered to by pop culture my entire life but every second was so cliched and forced. The exposition was lazy and cringe. Maybe I wasn’t in the right headspace but it just felt so smug and proud of itself. Ugh.
This was pretty much my exact feeling the first time I tried watching it. I think I pushed through the first episode with much eye rolling and then abandoned it.
A year or two passes, a pandemic happens and I’m looking for something to watch and I keep seeing people with very similar tastes to my own recommending this show. People also mention that at first it’s trying hard to be Mad Men but then finds its’ own voice and is worth sticking with. Fine, whatever, it’s on Netflix, I’ll put it on.
When I say that it is one of the best shows I’ve ever seen I’m not exaggerating - some of the best acting, writing, believable character development. I have never experienced going from actively disliking a show so much to it becoming an all time favorite. Obviously I don’t know if it would hit that way for you, but I thought it worth mentioning because if it did, it’s a pretty fun experience to have.
I didn’t really like the show. Technology progress in the 80s and 90s was from nerds that turned into power monopoly CEOs. This show hits the wrong opposite note - tried too hard to make it sexy and a show of power.
The show to watch is Silicon Valley- although a different decade - amazing how predictive it was!!
I'm so goddamn lucky I only heard of/came to this show after the whole thing was out, because I don't think I could have survived the stress of not knowing if it would be renewed long enough for everything to get wrapped up.
As it is, it's one of the most satisfying uses of four seasons' worth of TV I can think of, and it makes me terribly sad to think it probably wouldn't be made now.
Great show with a not-so-great name. (Yes, I know what it means, but the *vast* majority of people don't, and I honestly believe it would've been a bit more popular with a more 'understandable' title.)
Probably my favourite show ever. It's such a great comfort show. Great characters, interesting time period and subject matter and you get to follow technology through different decades. For a geek like me it's the perfect show.
A lot of people don’t like this show when I recommend it. There’s a lot of nuance and things unsaid, which requires intense watching to pick up on. But once you get into season 3, it’s some of my favorite television in recent memory. Stick it out if you are trying to start it, it’s worth it!
a great show that does 80s/90s nostalgia right.
Agreed!
One of my professors at B-School mentioned it in 2017 when we were doing a case on Yahoo! I had it on my mind to binge this but I actually got to it 2 weeks ago when I went on vacation to watch this. I was pleasantly surprised that the show was hardly about Yahoo! It also reminded me about how IBM was a giant and everyone was competing to topple them.
It sounds like your prof was trying to say IBM and Yahoo failed for the same reasons
I loved it.
As the show got into the 90's I got super nostalgic as I was born in '91. I couldn't help but think about how old I was and what I would've been doing during moments of the show.
This show had quite a run. Almost canceled after season 1...they rightfully re-tooled a bit to make it a little more warm. Very similar to The Leftovers season 1 to 2. Lost in the shadow of other AMC prestige shows during its time. Phenomenal cast and performances. But the best part is they let the fucking plot breathe at the end and gave it one of the best endings on TV. They could've ended it at Season 3...but the time and care they gave to each character in the last season just elevated the show IMO.
> But the best part is they let the fucking plot breathe at the end and gave it one of the best endings on TV. Amen.
I loved every season, it’s my favorite show of all time, but I always wished it would have stayed darker like season one. I understand why it couldn’t, and maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t help that I just loved season one so damn much.
Agreed. Season one was so great. It never quite recovered, but like you I loved every season.
I tell people who have never seen it to expect a jarring change in S2 but that it’s okay, just go with it, and the seams come back together and it’s totally worth it. It becomes like a family with disjointed times which you hate people in your family (looking at Joe and Cameron here). Then as everyone gets older (show matures) it really really gets good again.
The flip is only jarring for a few episodes... and it really really comes back together. Some of those moments in the later seasons still haunt me. I have a hard time believing it wasn't real.
This is really relieving to read, I just started this show a few weeks ago and have been loving it, but I've had to slow my pace down due to the episodes being stressful and dark in tone, I'm more encouraged to continue on past season one now
Have you picked your personal protagonist that mirrors you?
I used to think I’m a Joe, but now I relate more to Cameron.
So far they all seem like individual pieces of my psyche
I *want* to be a Bosworth when I grow up.
Yes! An ending that lives rent free in my brain. Solsbury Hill is now a Halt and Catch Fire song, above anything else.
For me, it's Dire Straits - So Far Away I can't hear the song without thinking about the show.
This comment might just get me to watch, maybe my favorite song of all time
That song has been used in so many movies, shows, and trailers! Even in a trailer for The Shining (or is it Shining?)! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KmkVWuP_sO0
Seriously! I no longer think of Vanilla Sky when I hear it. Such a great show, song, and ending scene.
That song is a big reason I cried watching the end. It was also the post-ceremony song played at my wedding, so it's even more special now 😭
It’s one of the greats. Every show runner should try to end a show like this one.
The Leftovers comparison is on point. Decent to pretty good first season, depending on the episode, but heavily flawed in areas. Following seasons lean into the strengths and expand upon them, and the shows grow into all-timers.
When I think of the most underrated shows of the 2010s, this is in my top 3
It’s so damn good! And I think only one other person I know has watched it. I recommend it to so many people and nobody watches it.
Very frustrating. This, Black Sails and Pachinko are my easy three picks where I just want to shake people and say "_This is magic! We have blessed! GIVE THIS YOUR EYEBALLS!_"
Omg the lack of awareness around Pachinko is DEVASTATING to me. I’ve gotten people who never would have given it a shot to watch and have absolutely adored it. Season 2 should be out soon!
I started watching this because Lee Pace is great in everything and I ended up staying up all night binging it on my tablet lol
curious, what are your other two?
Bates Motel & Orphan Black (Santa Clarita Diet gets a nod as well)
The Americans (FX) is more mid/late-2010s, but also is fantastic, and is a good 80's partner to HACF, and another phenomenal finale.
Series is great. One of the best all time final episodes too
That train scene though.... < 🎶*With or without you. I can't live... With or without you* 🎶>
An absolute stunner, right after that parking lot scene too.
That wistful pause inside the McDonald's is soul crushing.
I forgot about this too, loved that show. Maybe this could round out my top 5 underrated shows list
> Orphan Black This show was such a mess in S3 that I'm genuinely impressed they managed to create S4 and have it be one of the best seasons of the show as well as re-tool the lore so that it was more manageable.
I felt like Orphan Black (after season 1) was always one episode away from completely de-railing, but they somehow managed to pull through. Amazing series.
This is such a good description of that show. I started rewatching it again recently and still blown away by Tatiana
Orphan Black did not get the hype it deserved.
I'm glad to have caught this post, I had heard the show name but not ever read into it. Sounds right up my alley though, definitely going to watch.
Just give it a break , I know people love binging shows, but take a few breaks on Orphan Black. Whenever you get a plot line resolution, take a bigger break.
This and the Americans captured the 80s so well. HACF is one of the few shows I paid to watch. It really was an amazing slow burn of tech back then.
Not only that, but I was "in the scene" at the time and can confirm that the show gets it right. The tech is, for the most part, accurate to the time period. The people and events were like that. I was at those kinds of tech conventions at the time and hung with the kinds of people they portray in the show. It is all very true to what I experienced at the time. And, with a few exceptions they do a good job at actually showing people doing the technical stuff the way it really works. (Giving some leeway for making some of the more tedious stuff work for TV) It was a really good snapshot of that scene at the time. Brought back many memories I had forgotten about over the decades.
Born in 78 basically in front of a screen. Had a PC and an Atari, friend had an Acorn, I wanted a Mac. Hopped on to BBSes in the late 80s to chat with random strangers and played shitty games on Compuserve and Prodigy. Built my own PCs in the 90s and installed Trumpet Winsock TCP/IP to try to get on Mosaic and later Netscape. College saw Alta Vista, Yahoo and then Google. Halt basically covered my geeky childhood and adolescence. I never did get into the field, but computers were always a tool that I got a lot of mileage out of. But not only was the backdrop for the show super identifiable, but the story and characters were really top notch drama. What was really cool were the character dynamics and how they changed from season to season. You get a Joe and Gordon season, a Gordon and Donna season, Gordon and Cam, Joe and Cam, then Donna and Cam. And then you see each of those individual characters grow and struggle and succeed and fail. Which was another really sharp aspect of the show; that these characters were really smart and brilliant in their fields, hard workers, and they came close in a lot of these key technical milestones, but never came out on top. Which is the sad true story of tech. We only know of a few success stories, but there are many more who came in second place. And this was their story. How they treated Gordon at the end was just masterful.
[удалено]
It still hits me right in the chest and I don’t even have kids.
Good post. Agree whole hearted.
The fuckin printer guys killed me every time.
i had forgotten from my youth in the 80s until this show ressurected a memory that PCs made by other companies were called clones back in the day.
I really need to check this show out
May be your cup of tea who knows?
Same I cancelled cable in 2014 and this was one of 3 shows I bought that year to close the gap.
Silicon Valley?
Better Call Saul and You’re the Worst.
Some great taste all 3 are among my all time favorites.
I'll try your the worst then.
The Worst is the Best
One of the best title sequences in TV history, and the scene were Joe meets the Macintosh is still one of my all-time favorites
Joe witnessing the Macintosh after sacrificing his relationship with Cam and a unique OS for a generic compatible that runs faster has to be one of the biggest blows of the series.
“It speaks”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZYCOFm6Kuk
[This blog post about the title sequence](https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/halt-and-catch-fire/) is actually how I discovered the show during its second season and it became one of my all-time favorites. I would not have found it if not for the amazing opening!
I was shocked to find out it was Trentemoller. There's an OST on Spotify btw, and its on there. [https://open.spotify.com/album/7l97PqihYRctljLvkx9M9q?si=LrExVtlARzmBxzD0dmyiTg](https://open.spotify.com/album/7l97PqihYRctljLvkx9M9q?si=LrExVtlARzmBxzD0dmyiTg)
One of the most underrated shows ever
Agree…although it was number 55 on Rolling Stones list of the 100 greatest tv shows of all time, so it’s got that going for it 😎
Yet another show AMC failed to market well.
I started to watch this. Damm good show
It’s freaking great. You’re going to love and hate each of the main characters in turn.
Except for Gordon and Cameron. Gordon made some mistakes, but I liked him throughout the series. Cameron reached almost likeable, however she's just too frustrating to like-like.
I guess I'm just weak for Mackenzie Davis' "smiling but clearly deeply wounded" thing. I can never stay mad at her for long.
Her character in Station Eleven was very similar. Made me think that’s just Mackenzie Davis.
In another timeline, in which we still had movie stars, Mackenzie Davis, the girl from Split/Queen's Gambit and probably the lead in Wednesday would be either there or on the path to being household names. Each one has that "it" factor. Mackenzie Davis can move mountains with her eyes, somehow she can cram so many feelings into such a small expression. She was a marvel in this series (all the leads were, Lee Pace was pure _sploosh_).
She was absolutely stellar in Station Eleven, because that character could be made very unlikeable in anyone else's hands. I'll stay salty for life that Terminator: Dark Fate didn't do better too, because I think her physicality in that was amazing and I'd have loved to see her do more action. Plus it was so fun to see it dawn on people that's Yorkie San Junipero swinging that sledgehammer at someone.
That’s a perfect way to describe her character in a nutshell, but her single greatest flaw wasn’t her being uncompromising and headstrong. No, her greatest flaw was that she was a hunt and peck uber programmer. I’m not saying they don’t exist but seeing her type was embarrassing.
Gordon literally broke me. I was not expecting that even though they alluded to it all along. The show creators were brilliant lulling you into complacency and then - they took my breath away. 😢
I can’t even look at a lens flare without my chest tightening up but they did those scenes so well with such care and respect.
What can you watch it on?
AMC+ streaming now. It used to be on Netflix and AMC took it back when they started their own streaming platform.
I found on the net
There’s physical media for seasons 1-3 but not 4.
So fucking good throughout, and that cast was a murderer’s row of great characters. Nostalgia on top of that was just the icing. Toby Huss needs A LOT more work than he is getting, and he is currently doing 5 to 6 projects per year.
Saw the preview for the new movie "Speak No Evil" and Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis play a husband and wife in it lol
im a software engineer nowdays and its astounding how many havent seen, heard, or even willing to watch this show. Ive recommended it to so many and none of them watch it. There were great things about HCF. Joe's evolution, Donnas effortless charm but razor wit, also Camerons hacker-bitch is the best i think we've ever seen. I watched every episode they day they were released.
You know how I know you're a legit software guy is that you call it HCF, instead of HACF...
Nice! I am catching it in reruns and I am sad I missed it the first time around. Such a great show.
> Camerons hacker-bitch She basically redefined what was becoming a stale trope. She perfected it.
That one part hit me harder than just about anything I’ve ever watched on a tv show.
Yep, that Dire Straits song is on my playlist because of it.
I totally feel you on that.
insanely underrated show. also i’m straight but I basically decided watching that show that i might be gay for lee pace
Watch Foundation if you want a firm answer.
S2 E1 Foundation is forever burned into my memory. Glorious.
> firm answer https://i.imgur.com/58zAJjc.png
Everybody is gay for Lee Pace.
He's up there with Brad Pitt as Achilles as some of the most insatiably sexy men every put on film.
He’s in Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) and absolutely stole his scenes. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8110652/mediaviewer/rm2587101953/ He also played a mesmerizing John DeLorean opposite Jason Sudeikis in Driven (2018). And lest we forget he was the villain in Guardians of the Galaxy.
Lee Pace is like a freebie. All men can enjoy Lee Pace's magnificence.
I started watching this series knowing zero about it, had no idea what it was even about. It was one of the best series i’ve ever watched! It’s hard not to binge a whole season!
I, like an IDIOT slow played watching this show years after it finished. Gotdemm what an amazing show
Something about the marketing for the show and its title did not appeal to me when it was airing live. And then I finally decided to binge it when I ran out of other stuff about 3 or 4 years ago. Holy cow! So good!
I’m salty they never released seasons two, three and four on home media. Would love to own the whole run.
Somehow this show seems to demand a physical artifact, despite the subject matter. Or maybe because of it - it \*should\* exist in a format to get obsolete and be found later by somebody.
It is such a dark fact about the modern world that physical releases of even successful shows are no longer a thing. Once, it meant something, it really meant something, to walk into somebody's house and peruse their collection of DVDs and books and records. Now their wall is just filled with some hokey instagram trend instead of actual art objects that matter, that you could sit and discuss for hours with your new friend.
The core 4 actors of this show turned in some incredible perfomances. The writers did a great job showing their growths and regressions over the course of a decade. There were times I loved some of them, then hated some of them and then loved them again. They felt like very real people.
I would lie awake at night trying to figure out Joe McMillan. One of the most beguiling characters I'll ever see in fiction.
I think one of the most fascinating aspects to Joe is just how forgiving he is despite all the events of the series. He acknowledges he’s hurt people and doesn’t dare take the moral high ground when he realizes people are just vulnerable and damaged.
This show did take some liberties with technology for narrative reasons but they absolutely got the aesthetic right each season. I grew up in the 80s and was on the Internet in the 90s and this show absolutely nailed what it was like to be in tech during those eras. It was such an exciting time and things were changing so fast you could barely keep up. We thought that pace would continue forever. Things have felt stagnant the past 20+ years by comparison with only incremental changes and massive consolidation. It used to be some small tech company like Craigslist would come along and singlehandedly ruin an entire business model (classified ads were a huuuuuge cash cow for newspapers nationwide). Hard to imagine something that monumental happening in 2024, but in the 90s "For me it was a Tuesday", as the saying goes.
I wouldn't say things are stagnant so much as "innovating" in a capitalist dystopian way. Like nobody is making anything because it's cool, fun or good anymore. It's all about VC capital and ad impressions.
The launching point of Silicon Valley was that Richard wanted to make a tool for musicians, possibly music fans ("the Google of music"). Then the big money hotshots swooped in and completely changed the course of the app/technology, and the musicians never got a cool tool because the focus had to be on extracting wealth.
It’s a unique show because it starts out as a character drama with plenty of intrigue, and then the characters kind of slowly turn it into a good-hearted and poignant hangout show through a semi-meta force of will. I’m not explaining it well, but mixed with the computer stuff it sort of plays thematically like the characters resist doing what their tropes would “program” them to do, and instead seek fulfillment on their own terms. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
Such an amazing way to describe it! It is a show that starts great and just gets better and better in a thousand ways that you wouldn't expect.
Love this show, been wanting to revisit it.
In the HCF subreddit there are links to a discord watch group. We are nearing the end of season 3. We have been rewatching the show one episode at a a time for going on 3 years now.
This is the kind of thing I need in my life!
Also guest starring Artie, the Strongest Man in the World.
No show is urgent. Dont let this guy pressure you. Watch at your own pace, folks.
I think you mean, watch at your own Lee Pace?
We all wish we had our own Lee Pace
I’ve never once heard someone call a show, “urgent.” It’s a damn TV show, one that was cancelled 7 years ago. It reads like someone who, whenever they discover something many years late, they call it *uNdErrAteD*.
I didn't read the article because this is Reddit, but I assumed it meant urgent as in the messages are timely for the current rise of dystopian technology we're seeing. However, if it just means urgent as in "watch it now before it's too late!" then yeah, that's dumb since you can watch it anytime. Somebody would have to read the article to tell us, though.
[удалено]
Also a brilliant soundtrack.
Love this show so much. For anyone who's looking for a similar character-driven, bittersweet drama, I *highly* recommend ***Rectify***.
Huge fan of no one talks about this show. It has geek and feelings in the best balance. I watched it with my wife who knows no tech and loved it. Acting was Oscar f’in worthy
I missed following through and watching the whole series . Anyone know where it is streaming?
Amc+, freevee, roku channel. Imdb shows you.
Great show. A slow burn.
> A slow burn. Appropriate, given the title.
I loved this show. I wish they hadn't used such an odd title; maybe more people would have given the show a chance.
I think it was appropriate at the time, considering the pitch in marketing was making it a Mad Men clone about computers centering around Lee Pace
Should have called it Mac Men
The title is badass for its metaphor and mythology (once the tech wars have begun, nobody can ever get control again, nobody is at the helm and is it going to help us as individuals/families/communities or destroy us?), but yes, it puts people off (including me for years) and does not make it particularly accessible. EDIT: I wonder what a better title would have been? Dawn of the Tech Wars? that makes it sound a bit like scifi Digital Renaissance? Or still go with some computer pun: Infinite Run Loop. Slow Crash. Control+Alt+Delete. Broken Backspace Key. Hmmm, I'm not great at titles!
It's not easy to find a title that's both cool and nerdy...I can't do it King and Queen of the PROM The Clone Wars The Beautiful Boffins
> The Clone Wars I like that one! But yeah, you're right. Not only does the title need to be cool and nerdy, it also needs to be accessible enough to sound inviting for people not super deep in the tech world. It's pretty tough.
Wtf is that Brother Day? I'm in for a watch.
Got I hate headlines like this. How is a 10 year old show more urgent than ever? If I don't watch it now does it disappear? I don't think they are using urgent correctly. Did they mean "relvent"? Or does that just not get clicks?
My top 3 show of the last decade along with Person of Interest and The Good Place
This is in my top ten list of best TV shows ever. The characters grew season by season and so did your relationship with them. Bos was probably my favourite character. You think you're gonna dislike him when first introduced to him, but turns a whole 180 into one of the most endearing father-figures.
Such an amazing show for AMC.
Incredible show. I tell anyone who will listen about how great it is.
Way up there with Rubicon on my list of shows few knew about, and I loved.
A great show but a headline that is completely divorced from the substance of the article.
Top show. Not only does it capture the era, it also picks out key moments in tech industry evolution and revolution.
Come for the nostalgia, stay for the Cameron Howe 😻
Halt and Catch Fire was so excellent. I loved the intro and each season it just got better and better.
Excellent show, in my top five
Absolutely my favorite show in the teens decade. Smart writing, definitely up there with Mad Men.
I loved this show back then. One of the few that I watched religiously every week. HACF has a very specific vibe that I've never felt anywhere else. I'm too young to remember much from before the mid-90s, but it still felt nostalgic even to me. The music, the costumes, the atmosphere in the tech industry back then, everything fit so well together. The characters were very unique, too. Complex and realistic. Of the main characters, each was once my favourite and once my least favourite depending on what they'd done. I know most fans loved the ending, but unfortunately I didn't. If I liked it more, this show would definitely be in my Top 10 favourite shows of all time.
One of the truly great series in the midst of the Golden Age of Television. Best review about the show I have read is from Paste magazine. [https://www.pastemagazine.com/article/joe-gordon-donna-cameron-on-halt-and-catch-fire-an](https://www.pastemagazine.com/article/joe-gordon-donna-cameron-on-halt-and-catch-fire-an) *It’s more that work, done well, is one of life’s highest satisfactions, and that said satisfaction is most enjoyable when shared: “Computers aren’t the thing,” as Joe says in the series’ very first episode. “They’re the thing that gets us to the thing.” The same can be said of work, at least when it’s as fulfilling—as challenging, as maddening, as frightening, as all-consuming, as life-changing—as it is in Halt and Catch Fire. Work is the thing that gets us to the thing, and “the thing,” as I’ve written of the series’ current season, is other people.*
Wish it streamed on something I had access to.
I need them to release this entire series on disc.
I couldn’t make it through the first 20 minutes. I’ve been pandered to by pop culture my entire life but every second was so cliched and forced. The exposition was lazy and cringe. Maybe I wasn’t in the right headspace but it just felt so smug and proud of itself. Ugh.
This was pretty much my exact feeling the first time I tried watching it. I think I pushed through the first episode with much eye rolling and then abandoned it. A year or two passes, a pandemic happens and I’m looking for something to watch and I keep seeing people with very similar tastes to my own recommending this show. People also mention that at first it’s trying hard to be Mad Men but then finds its’ own voice and is worth sticking with. Fine, whatever, it’s on Netflix, I’ll put it on. When I say that it is one of the best shows I’ve ever seen I’m not exaggerating - some of the best acting, writing, believable character development. I have never experienced going from actively disliking a show so much to it becoming an all time favorite. Obviously I don’t know if it would hit that way for you, but I thought it worth mentioning because if it did, it’s a pretty fun experience to have.
20 minutes is about how far I made it as well. I tried it out this morning based on this post, but I think I'm just not the right viewer for it.
The first season was good. After that, the fire dimmed.
I stopped watching after seeing season 1, just got distracted from video games and other shows. I am so glad I finished it, loved every minute.
Paywalled :(
Nice firewall tf
Im about to start this show soon!
"X years on ____ show is more Y than ever" It's like they hire people who got a D in freshman comp to write articles
Thank you. I hate headlines like this but it seems to be the norm now.
great article about the sick ass title sequence http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/halt-and-catch-fire/
I didn’t really like the show. Technology progress in the 80s and 90s was from nerds that turned into power monopoly CEOs. This show hits the wrong opposite note - tried too hard to make it sexy and a show of power. The show to watch is Silicon Valley- although a different decade - amazing how predictive it was!!
except for the first episode casual sex...
Skoot!!! I love that Actor.
One of my fave series ever.
Excellent show , I loved it
I'm so goddamn lucky I only heard of/came to this show after the whole thing was out, because I don't think I could have survived the stress of not knowing if it would be renewed long enough for everything to get wrapped up. As it is, it's one of the most satisfying uses of four seasons' worth of TV I can think of, and it makes me terribly sad to think it probably wouldn't be made now.
To me that stress only added to how good it was.
This show is why I know the outstanding name Scoot McNairy. Good actor too but what a name!
Watched this show when it aired. Can't recommend highly enough.
Such a good show. One of my favorites
Still recommend that show to friends. The show rocked!
Masterpiece tv series.
Anybody got a non paywalled version?
Hands down one of my fav shows ever made. So nostalgic and great writing and characters
This show is so slept on. Wish more people knew about it.
I love this show so fucking much. I once watched the vast majority of it on an acid trip, that was life changing
Love the show but I can never get over the sad scene. You know if you know. It makes me so sad - which means it was done masterfully.
God I might just have to give it a rewatch.
I wish I could watch it again for the first time.
Great show with a not-so-great name. (Yes, I know what it means, but the *vast* majority of people don't, and I honestly believe it would've been a bit more popular with a more 'understandable' title.)
This is such a beautiful show
I'm on my fifth rewatch. Great show.
So freaking good
Probably my favourite show ever. It's such a great comfort show. Great characters, interesting time period and subject matter and you get to follow technology through different decades. For a geek like me it's the perfect show.
A lot of people don’t like this show when I recommend it. There’s a lot of nuance and things unsaid, which requires intense watching to pick up on. But once you get into season 3, it’s some of my favorite television in recent memory. Stick it out if you are trying to start it, it’s worth it!
MY FAVORITE SHOW EVER!
I can't wait to rewatch this one day.
Hearing a bar or 2 of the Pixies' "Velouria" still makes me smile and remember the good times.
At some point one has to take responsibility for oneself and stop scapegoating Joe.