Halt and Catch Fire

Falstaff

Falstaff

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[SERIES][TVPOSTER]
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[/TVPOSTER][SERIESWRAP][EPISODENAME]Halt and Catch Fire[/EPISODENAME]

Genre: [GENRE]Drama[/GENRE]

First Aired: [RELEASE]2014-06-01[/RELEASE]

Overview: [PLOT]Set in the early 1980s, and about a fictional visionary, an engineer and a prodigy whose innovations confronts the corporate behemoths of the time. Their personal and professional partnership will be challenged by greed and ego while charting the changing culture in Texas' Silicon Prairie.[/PLOT][/SERIESWRAP][/SERIES]

Halt and Catch Fire AMC

Anyone else watching this? I caught the first episode and thought it was pretty good... definitely good enough that I'll finish out the season.
 
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Joeboo

Joeboo

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First episode was really good, I thought the 2nd episode slipped a little bit in quality but it was still enjoyable. I'll definitely be watching the whole season of this show. I find the subject matter personally interesting since the early 80s was roughly the time I started using and becoming familiar with PCs as a kid.

The punk/programmer chick is a little too stereotyped for my liking so far(hey look, a rebellious punk anti-establishment hacker-type, that's never been done before), but maybe her character will become a little more plausible as the season progresses.
 
Falstaff

Falstaff

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Yeah, I thought the three main characters were all a little too over the top stereotyped but we'll see.
 
Stosh

Stosh

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Eyashusa_sl said:
Yeah, I thought the three main characters were all a little too over the top stereotyped but we'll see.
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I've watched the first two episodes. If Cameron and Gordon believed all of Joe's lies I would stop watching. However they know he's a bullshit artist and continue to allow themselves to be dragged along so that's kind of compelling. The story arcs from a character development standpoint seem to be obvious however, with Cameron yearning to be "normal", Gordon having a drinking and possible cheating on his wife angle, and the Joe at IBM/dad/what he's been doing the last year crap.

I hope the payoff is worth it, since if this show was not based in the early PC universe I would not be bothered to watch.
 
ShakyJake

ShakyJake

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I really dug the first episode (haven't seen the second).

Now, is this company developing the first IBM clone? I recall IBM fighting that back in the day.
 
khorum

khorum

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Its about a (fictionalized) company's effort to cleanroom clone the IBM bios. Which is weird since they mentioned columbia in the show, which ACTUALLY already successfully cleanroomed the bios (tho not entirely, it was like 92% compatible lol). I guess having a bunch of neckbeards in bunny suits wouldnt make for a great mad men successor.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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Yeah, they specifically mention Columbia, Packard Bell, and I think someone else that were already making IBM clones, and how they all got around being sued into oblivion.

I had a Packard Bell 286 PC back in the day. Goddamn it sucked. IBM compatible my ass, about the only games I could get to work were Sierra-made adventure games. Damn near everything else I tried I had to end up returning to Babbages because they would never work.
 
khorum

khorum

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haha ya everyone made a clone. I coded on Amiga until the last couple years of high school but my family had a fucking HYUNDAI clone. I remember it being 96% compatible was a big selling point.
 
Villide

Villide

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Not bad so far, but it started leaking oil towards the end of episode 2. His "It all started when I was 9" soliloquy in the parking lot...sheesh.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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Yeah we didn't really need a giant hole punched in his slick super-salesman facade quite yet. Needed more buildup of his asshole side first to really make that change meaningful
 
gogusrl

gogusrl

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Didn't Cameron call his bullshit in the last minutes of the episode with Sputnik coming down almost a year earlier ?
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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It's definitely getting dumber. I hope it turns back around before the end of the season.

I don't really need to see the hacker chick finding inspiration in random places and writing code on mirrors and crap. That's dumb. The show started out really intelligent and witty in the first episode, and it seems to be dumbing itself down for an attempt at mass appeal as it goes on.
 
Stosh

Stosh

Bronze Knight of the Realm
201
12
joeboo_sl said:
It's definitely getting dumber. I hope it turns back around before the end of the season.

I don't really need to see the hacker chick finding inspiration in random places and writing code on mirrors and crap. That's dumb. The show started out really intelligent and witty in the first episode, and it seems to be dumbing itself down for an attempt at mass appeal as it goes on.
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That chick's nipple-tits are distracting. There is nothing attractive about them and she could probably wear three shirts and a sweater and her hard nipples would still be visible.
 
ShakyJake

ShakyJake

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I REALLY wanted to like this show since I grew up during the home computer wars of the 80s. But it's mostly just boring and I don't really care for most of the characters.
 
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