Halt and Catch Fire Catches Fire
I don’t want to say that Halt and Catch Fire was a bad show in its first season. It had engaging, well-drawn characters, the setting (early ‘80s Texas) was specific and convincing, and the overall story (trying to create the first portable computer) was compelling.
But the show made a few odd missteps in that first season, starting with keeping its most compelling character (Kerry Bishe’s hardware whiz Donna) mostly peripheral to the main plot and ending with its protagonist, Lee Pace’s Steve Jobsian tech visionary Joe MacMillan, setting fire to a truck containing the first shipment of the Giant, the aformentioned portable computer.
It’s unclear if the show’s huge pivot in this second season toward its more interesting characters – Donna and Mackenzie Davis’ temperamental code prodigy... Read More