Comment by BoredomIsFun
7 hours ago
> excellent show "halt and catch fire".
I found it very caricature, too saturated with romance - which is untypical for tech environment, much like "big bang theory".
7 hours ago
> excellent show "halt and catch fire".
I found it very caricature, too saturated with romance - which is untypical for tech environment, much like "big bang theory".
IMO it really came into its own after the first season. S1 felt like mad men but with computers, whereas in the latter seasons it focused more on the characters - quite beautiful and sad at times.
The BBC made a docudrama, Micro Men, with Alexander Armstrong as Clive Sinclair and Martin Freeman as Chris Curry.
Sophie Wilson cameos when they have a fight.
IMO the first series was excellent, the 2nd took a massive downturn and stopped watching after that.
I vaguely remember that they tried to reboot it several times. So the same crew invented personal computers, BBSes and the Internet (or something like that), but every time they started from being underfunded unknowns. They really tried to make the series work.
That's not really what happens at all. The characters on the show never make the critical discoveries or are responsible for the major breakthroughs, they're competing in markets that they ultimately cannot win in, because while the show is fictional, it also follows real computing history.
(MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW)
For example, in the first season, the characters we follow are not inventing the PC - that has been done already. They're one of many companies making an IBM clone, and they are modestly successful but not remarkably so. At the end of the season, one of the characters sees the Apple Macintosh and realizes that everything he had done was a waste of time (from his perspective, he wanted to change the history of computers, not just make a bundle of cash), he wasn't actually inventing the future, he just thought he was. They also don't really start from being underfunded unknowns in each season - the characters find themselves in new situations based on their past experiences in ways that feel reasonable to real life.
It's still very good I'd say. It shows the relation between big oil and tech: it began in Texas (with companies like Texas Instruments) then shifted to SV (btw first 3D demo I saw on a SGI, running in real time, was a 3D model of... An oil rig). As it spans many years, it shows the Commodore 64, the BBSes, time-sharing, the PC clone wars, the discovery of the Internet, the nascent VC industry etc.
Everything is period correct and then the clothes and cars too: it's all very well done.
Is there a bit too much romance? Maybe. But it's still worth a watch.
I never really could get into the Cameron/Joe romance, it felt like it was initially inserted to get sexy people doing sexy things onto the show and then had to be a star crossed lovers thing after character tweaks in season 2.
But when they changed the characters to be passionate stubborn people eventually started to cling to each other as they together rode the whirlwind of change the show really found its footing for me. And they did so without throwing away the events of season 1, instead having the 'takers' go on redemption arcs.
My only real complaint after re-watching really was it needed maybe another half season. I think the show should have ended with the .com bust and I didn't like that Joe sort of ran away when it was clear he'd attached himself to the group as his family by the end of the show.