Halt Catch Fire
Aug. 30th, 2020 09:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatFinished Halt Catch Fire - which is four seasons, and aired on AMC about a year or so ago. It's available now on NETFLIX.
It's tighter than most - in part because only four seasons, ten episodes each season, and five main characters, with about three recurring supporting characters. With possibly the best series ending I've seen. Because it is so compact, it manages to swerve some of the pitfalls and missteps that series like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, etc - fell into. Let's face it - when it comes to television series - four-five seasons is best, and the less episodes, the tighter the story.
Halt Catch Fire is character centric - focusing on the arcs of a computer engineer, visionary, and prodigy coder as they join together to create new technology in the 1980s and 1990s - at the start of the tech explosion.
The series also acts as a fun history lesson of the early age of the tech industry. It's accurate. I worked in the industry from 1997-2007, in various guises, as did my brother and various family members and friends. Some still do.
It takes us from the earliest conception of the lap-top computer through internet security, broadcast servers, game development and finally net browsers. Showing how the attempt to create comes with its pitfalls.
Also, as my brother put it, it's a rather subversive model in that they keep failing.
The best and most evolved arc is Joe McMillian, who goes from hot-shot tech visionary to college humanities professor, ending the series with the exact same line he started it with - but in a different context and from a different perspective, and with different goals in mind. Played with subtle pathos by Lee Pace, the character is an odd twist on the Steve Jobs asshole trope. The other characters throughout - lump blame on him, while it becomes progressively clear that it is easier than accepting it themselves, and in truth they are as much if not more to blame for their personal failures.
In addition, we get excellent in-depth character insights into Gordon, the failed computer engineer who keeps picking himself up and redefining himself, his wife, Donna, who equally redefines herself and of the four is the most successful in tech, and the only one who appears to be in it at the end. Cameron, the computer coder/game developer is perhaps the least developed and the most frustrating of the arcs. With Bosworth, much like Joe and Gordon among the better developed.
It's very male-centric, much like the industry displayed - but, it does show how women slowly take over the industry and infilterate it. Making it different as they go and inserting life into it.
A series that is hopeful at the end, and satisfying at the same time. Rare that - to have a series final that keeps things open-ended, yet is satisfying, realistic and feels final.
I'd have to say this one of the better series enders that I've seen, and it is rather brilliant in how it is done.
It also worked as another television series I could discuss with my poor mother. Who just watched Black Panther on Disney Plus and loved it.
It's tighter than most - in part because only four seasons, ten episodes each season, and five main characters, with about three recurring supporting characters. With possibly the best series ending I've seen. Because it is so compact, it manages to swerve some of the pitfalls and missteps that series like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, etc - fell into. Let's face it - when it comes to television series - four-five seasons is best, and the less episodes, the tighter the story.
Halt Catch Fire is character centric - focusing on the arcs of a computer engineer, visionary, and prodigy coder as they join together to create new technology in the 1980s and 1990s - at the start of the tech explosion.
The series also acts as a fun history lesson of the early age of the tech industry. It's accurate. I worked in the industry from 1997-2007, in various guises, as did my brother and various family members and friends. Some still do.
It takes us from the earliest conception of the lap-top computer through internet security, broadcast servers, game development and finally net browsers. Showing how the attempt to create comes with its pitfalls.
Also, as my brother put it, it's a rather subversive model in that they keep failing.
The best and most evolved arc is Joe McMillian, who goes from hot-shot tech visionary to college humanities professor, ending the series with the exact same line he started it with - but in a different context and from a different perspective, and with different goals in mind. Played with subtle pathos by Lee Pace, the character is an odd twist on the Steve Jobs asshole trope. The other characters throughout - lump blame on him, while it becomes progressively clear that it is easier than accepting it themselves, and in truth they are as much if not more to blame for their personal failures.
In addition, we get excellent in-depth character insights into Gordon, the failed computer engineer who keeps picking himself up and redefining himself, his wife, Donna, who equally redefines herself and of the four is the most successful in tech, and the only one who appears to be in it at the end. Cameron, the computer coder/game developer is perhaps the least developed and the most frustrating of the arcs. With Bosworth, much like Joe and Gordon among the better developed.
It's very male-centric, much like the industry displayed - but, it does show how women slowly take over the industry and infilterate it. Making it different as they go and inserting life into it.
A series that is hopeful at the end, and satisfying at the same time. Rare that - to have a series final that keeps things open-ended, yet is satisfying, realistic and feels final.
I'd have to say this one of the better series enders that I've seen, and it is rather brilliant in how it is done.
It also worked as another television series I could discuss with my poor mother. Who just watched Black Panther on Disney Plus and loved it.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-31 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-31 06:59 pm (UTC)The reviewers love the female relationship and the female characters of Cameron/Donna (who I had issues with), and underplayed the core and more interesting and better developed relationship and character arcs of Joe/Gordon. I think they were pushing the political correct message, but the best character arcs were Joe/Gordon.
I think the critics politicized it -- and turned a lot of people who may have enjoyed it off? Television critics often can push people off shows - they alienate me all the time. Most people don't watch television for the same reasons television critics do.
We want to escape and enjoy, not be informed, etc. So there's a disconnect.