Halt and Catch Fire Series Review

Halt and Catch Fire (2014-2017)

Season 1 - 10 episodes (2014)
Season 2 - 10 episodes (2015)
Season 3 - 10 episodes (2016)
Season 4 - 10 episodes (2017)

Rent Halt and Catch Fire on Amazon Video
Created by: Christopher Cantwell, Christopher C. Rogers
Starring: Lee Pace, Scoot McNairy, Mackenzie Davis, Kerry Bishé , Toby Huss, Anabeth Gish,
Rated: TV-14
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Plot
Entrepreneurs and engineers at the forefront of the 80s technological revolution become even larger players in the 90s information society.

Verdict
The setting is enticing, and the first season was a solid story, albeit with standard characters in a underdog plot. It was above average, but this show grew into something so much more. By the end of the final season, the show proved how amazing it is. The characters became more complex and intriguing. The show wasn't about underdogs fighting big companies, it was about failure, about being a day late and one step behind. The characters faced adversity and kept proceeding. The setting is a lot of fun. It takes place in between history, with fictional characters that are fighting actual companies that remain faceless in the show. After four seasons, this show is nothing less than incredible.
Watch it.

Review
From the start the series has the advantage of hindsight. We know how technology developed, so the characters have prescient ideas. That gives the show drive, but even knowing the future doesn't help if you aren't first to develop the idea.

Season 1
In season one Jim (Lee Pace) and Gordon (Scoot McNairy) want to revolutionize personal computing. Jim is a piece of work. He's driven to conquer by any means necessary. Anyone is expendable if it furthers his goals. He gets a job at a small software firm and strong arms them into building a computer. Jim is the idea man, while Gordon has to build the thing.

Mackenzie Davis plays Cameron.

It captures '80s excess with an innovative competitive spirit. The first season is full of standard characters. Cameron (Mackenzie Davis) is the fresh out of school manic pixie girl developer. Gordon is the failed and tortured geek. Joe is the ruthless hotshot yuppie.

Mackenzie Davis and Lee Pace play Cameron and Joe.

This is silicon valley startup culture, but set in the '80s which provides the show a unique perspective. A company implodes, and a potential juggernaut rises in its place. Gordon builds the hardware while Cameron writes the code. She's petulant which can get annoying but her ability is apparent.
Joe is a consummate liar selling hopes and dreams, and he's very good at it. What works is that we know these characters, we know how they will react whether good or bad.

Scoot McNairy plays Gordon.

Season one concludes with them scaling back their grand ideas to compete. Because of that they lose what makes the project unique, are beaten by their nemesis IBM with a revolutionary computer, and even have their design copied.

I enjoyed season one, but I wondered how the series would follow that. Do they develop a new project? Can you capture this season's drive an energy again?

Season 2
Season two jumps two years into the future. This season has gotten bigger, there's more people and the main characters are working separately, each of them starting over. The focus and intensity had been lost.  Gordon, Joe and Cameron are separated and without goals. I assumed this would have them coming back together for a new project.

Cameron and Donna.

In this season Cameron and Gordon's wife Donna (Kerry Bishé) have teamed up. They are opposites and there's only one way that can go. The more power Cameron gets, the more annoying she becomes. She wants everything her way. She's a lot like Joe. Donna sees the potential for online interaction and forums, but Cameron doesn't like it. Donna realizes why, "because you [Cameron] don't like it or because it didn't come from you." Joe and Cameron are about control. Joe wants control over Cameron and Donna's company and Cameron wants complete control.

Gordon.

I wasn't liking season two as much. I wanted more of season one, but half way in it starts to pick up. This show's plan was much broader than I expected. One aspect of the series is that it exists beside and behind real life companies and people. We're seeing the people that failed despite their great ideas. Those ideas may have been better than what was released, but if you're a step behind or too far ahead you will lose. Timing is everything. This season starts to pin that down, and that's what this show is about. I love the chase to innovate in season one, but season two focuses on recovering after failure, exploring the definition of success. This is the point the show starts to become something really great.

Season 3
Season three moves to California, fully embracing Silicon Valley. This season has a focus on privacy and sexism with Donna and Cameron growing their company and expanding social media. Each season expands on the business side of things as technology expands. Cameron and Donna are looking for funding while competing with similar businesses. Cameron and Donna face difficulty running the company because Cameron can always end an argument by stating she owns the company.

Donna, Gordon, Bos, and Cameron.

This season is the love to hate Cameron ride. She's hypocritical, but that's also part of what makes this good. You need a character to hate, and despite her shortcomings she's doing what she thinks is best and we can see that.

Joe and an investor.

Joe is head of a cyber security company, and it's an interesting choice to skip all of the steps that he took to get there. We get to see Joe from an outsider's perspective which doesn't do him any favors. Ryan wanted to work at Joe's company because of free anti-virus software. Ryan soon learns that was all a ruse. Free software would expand the user base before they launch a subscription model. Joe now has the freedom to be even more eccentric.

I really like that this show runs with the story. Instead of adding filler so the season ends and season four has a time jump, this jumps at episode nine. The story ran out, but the show didn't pad it, instead setting up for season four which will focus on the precursors of the internet.

Toby Huss plays John 'Bos' Bosworth.

Bosworth is a side character in season one that becomes prominent in successive seasons. He's a great character that's just outside of technology, but still has vital skills. What blew my mind is that Toby Huss played Artie in Pete and Pete.

The production design replicates the time periods very well, aging the characters from the 80s to the 90s. Season one started in 1983, season two jumped to 1985, and season three ends in 1990.

Season 4
Season four has a great montage of Joe and Gordon working on a web browser. You can see the origins of Yahoo and Google in this season as Joe is focused on indexing the web. Despite being first on web browsing, Joe and Gordon end up being late to the market again.

Gordon.

What's so cool about this show is how far the characters have progressed. They are so far from who they were in season one, Donna most of all. She was just Gordon's wife in season one, but becomes a main character later. She's much different just from season three to four.

This group of geniuses, each with their own skill set, miss every door and opportunity. What is success? They've made money, but their big dreams don't pan out. Gordon sold his company between seasons one and two, but it wasn't enough for him to retire. After teaming up with Joe he is rich.

Cameron's latest game isn't catching on. She's still making games like she did in the 80s, and the world has moved on. The market does't appreciate the complexities of her game.

This is the final season and it feels like it. We can see plot lines wrapping. This season is a variation of Yahoo versus Google with Gordon and Joe competing with Donna. In season three, they tried to create a door to the web. Now they're crafting the experience.

Donna and Cameron.

I'm extrapolating, but this is an interesting look into how Google probably started while showing us the mechanics of how it works. Work places are always fun and competitive, very loose. Why is it those types of places are always depicted as thriving? If anything I wish this show was more technical.

Just like that, Joe and Gordon's company is ousted by Yahoo. Within the technology market, it's always the new kid that topples the establishment. Netscape came out first, but went down never to come back. Yahoo was so prominent, and now it's an afterthought. That doesn't even acknowledge all the entities we never even heard about.

This show started as something good in season one, but it concludes as something amazing. That couldn't happen without multiple seasons. This show did a great job developing the characters. They went from working on pixelated black and green screens to full color Windows based machines. The technology has developed in tandem with the characters. The show doesn't highlight the advancements either. There is no exposition. This is character driven. It's rare for a show not to want to brag.

Joe.

The final season is a bit of a curtain call, and I love it for that. Most modern shows don't go beyond five years, but it's rare for a show to get better each season. The final episode has a masterful flash forward that is so efficient with no waste. It connects the end of this season, and the series, with what the future holds. There's also plenty of symmetry between the end and the first season. This is a rare show that I really miss once it ended.