Halt and Catch Fire: Series Review

 

 

I have this tendency to watch shows years after they were popular. With Halt and Catch Fire though, it was never popular.

If you’re asking yourself “Wasn’t that on AMC a few years ago?” you’d be right. I don’t have cable so I don’t catch a lot of shows when they premier. But few people do that anymore. Who really checks the TV guide and plops down sharply at 8:00 PM anymore? But if you’re unfamiliar (I certainly was) it’s broadly about the tech industry from 1983 to 1995. Four main characters make up the core of the story. A cutthroat marketing guru with a knack for finding talent and exploiting it for big profits: Two married Berkeley grads with extensive knowledge of computer hardware, and a brilliant young coder with an authority problem.

The marketing guy, Joe McMillan, knows just enough about the business to be dangerous. He puts a small team together to sell his own ‘portable computer’ with its own operating system. Joe isn’t an honest dealer and cuts a lot of corners. He knows his end game and forces others to comply through subterfuge and half truths. You can’t help admiring his vision for the burgeoning world of tech and finance. To him there is always a wrinkle to exploit and it’s a race to the finish for a pot of gold. But it’s not pure greed, he loves creating. He also knows his limitations and finds help.

Candace is the punk rock coder who Joe pulls from a computer science class and convinces her to work for him. She’s brilliant but scattered and doesn’t work well with others. Gordon and Donna Clark are in the middle of a shaky marriage when Joe steps in to enlist Gordon for his project. Both Donna and Gordon eventually play key roles in the new business and see their share of booms and busts.  

What makes this show work so well? It’s the same formula that makes any TV show work, interesting characters in volatile situations. At its core, Halt and Catch Fire is a show about relationships and how they evolve over the course of years. The success and failure of their relationships matches the up and down world of any business in a growth phase. The same ideas that create success often create friction as employees once deemed critical get forced out when they don’t fit anymore. Competing visions can only survive for so long; growth demands a singular idea and a singular voice.

 I’m embarrassed to say, a lot of the tech stuff goes over my head. I get enough of it to follow the plot because it’s not really essential to the story line. Anyone who’s watched even one episode of Shark Tank will be familiar with venture capital and how essential it is for tech start-ups, especially in the 90’s.

Halt also works as a compelling historical fiction because it follows big developments that actually did happen, developing the World Wide Web, racing to create an adaptable browser, developing shooter games like Doom. A couple things are clear about the tech industry that’s exactly like energy or steel in a different era, cutthroat practices pay off. We like to think everyone plays fair but where windfall profits are in play the cheating multiplies. Ideas get stolen from small players or purchased before they have a chance to grow. Or, they get overwhelmed with debt and a lack of new expansion to add value. Only the strong survive.

Each season is a different take on the key characters, a 'reboot' if you will. In this way the series is able to add real depth as they succeed and fail in a volatile climate.  

The music is incredible too. It’s basically a catalogue of 80’s punk like the Talking Heads, the Eurhythmics, the Cars, and even 90’s stuff like Hole and the Pixies. Of course it helps to like this stuff already. It’s not all punk, but the quick pace of the 80’s tech world fits perfectly with a countercultural soundtrack.

The Guardian called it “the best show that nobody watched”. Maybe because, in this age of streaming channels like Netflix and Hulu we don’t bother as much with TV anymore. I know it was on AMC and not CBS but still, it must have needed a marketing boost. If there is any complaint for me it’s with the title. Halt and Catch Fire doesn’t tell me what kind of show it is unless it’s one of those industry terms that tech people know. In either case it’s a great show and I’m amazed by how much I got sucked in.