Halt and Catch Fire - Renewed for a 4th & final season

[Crimson]

The series is set in the early 1980s, and depicts a fictionalized insider's view of the personal computer revolution. The name is a reference to the machine code instruction Halt and Catch Fire which could cause a computer's central processing unit to cease all meaningful function.

Cast

Lee Pace as Joe MacMillan
Scoot McNairy as Gordon Clark
Mackenzie Davis as Cameron Howe
Kerry Bishé as Donna Clark
Toby Huss as John Bosworth

Metacritic consensus, early reviews are positive. Folks from Breaking Bad, Southland, and Rectify are behind it.

AMC’s 80s period drama about the computer revolution, Halt and Catch Fire, is off to a thrilling start. 9/10

The action unfurls a mere 30 years ago, but it may as well be the Dark Ages when viewed through today’s technology-dependent lens. That’s a big part of what makes the show such fun.

...Halt and Catch Fire is a triumphant pilot with excellent writing, impressive acting and a noteworthy cinematic visual style....

Trailer:

Awesome title sequence:

AMC has released the pilot early. You can watch it on their site (if you can trick into thinking you're from the US) or on YouTube.

It's also on the high seas if you want a higher res version.

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I thought the pilot was excellent. AMC need a hit after Low Winter Sun and Turn and with Mad Men ending next year. But I have a feeling this is going to be another Rubicon; great show, no one watching.

[Grumpy David]

Enjoyed the pilot episode, will add to weekly viewing.

[Mr Yoshi]

Brilliant opening titles, sold.

[Skippy]

"The battle for CTRL begins"

Nice

[Death's Head]

Is this coming to any UK channels?

[Xeno]

So far no but I'm sure once the buzz starts happening it will get picked up.

[Irene Demova]

This has some really bad dialogue being acted out like it's gospel.

[Crimson]

This has some really bad dialogue being acted out like it's gospel.

"...the thing that gets us to the thing"?

That was about the only line I can remember from the pilot that rubbed me the wrong way.

[Irene Demova]

Yeah, I made the post right after watching that scene, it picked up from then on. The cast is very good but it's weird how much they've styled the lead actress to resemble Jennifer Lawrence.

The first half of the pilot is really quite generic post mad-men period stuff but it picks up from then on.

[Crimson]

I guess somewhat unsurprisingly the première ratings were pretty poor.

After an aggressive sampling strategy for its newest drama, the inaugural telecast brought in 1.2 million viewers on Sunday night. That's 900,000 viewers shy of Turn's premiere in April -- albeit a launch that did not get the same online rollout as Halt and Catch Fire.

For nearly two weeks, AMC made the Halt and Catch Fire pilot available on AMC.com, Tumblr and its on-demand platform. It's the widest preview net the cable network has cast to date, and AMC president Charlie Collier noted in a Monday release that it already received hundreds of thousands of plays.

That means full premiere ratings will come down the line -- and ideally the initial promotion push will translates to bigger same-day returns moving forward. The 10 p.m. telecast averaged only 433,000 viewers in the targeted adults 18-49 demographic.

Time-shifting could also be a boon to Halt and Catch Fire's soft open. AMC, like all networks, has seen its DVR ratings on the rise. The recent season finale of Mad Men jumped a whopping 116 percent in the key demo after just three days' worth of DVR views. That episode now stands at 3.6 million total viewers and 1.84 million adults 18-49.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-f ... tch-708642

[Drunken_Master]

Is this like Automan?

[Somebody Else's Presents]

Is it as good as Micro Men?

[Irene Demova]

Second episode wasn't as good; the plot was made up of a series of cliches. Still good enough to watch but it wasn't up to scratch for a show of this type

[Johnny Ryall]

Agreed. Finding it hard to care about the show but it's a subject I like so I'll give it a couple more weeks.

[Crimson]

The end of the second episode was of kind of ludicrous. I didn't think at all fit with Joe's character that he would just break down and spill his guts like that so the reveal that it was all a play makes more sense but it's still massively contrived.

Apart from that I quite enjoyed it. Hopefully the show finds it feet soon. Toby Huss is fantastic.

[Crimson]

Third and fourth episodes were much better.

[Cheeky Devlin]

Third and fourth episodes were much better.

Yeah I've been enjoying it as well. Not gonna win any awards or anything, but still good stuff.

Joe clearly has some deep-seated mental issues.

I strawberry floating love the opening credits though.

[Crimson]

I think Ep 5 was probably the best since the pilot. The change to a more light hearted tone was badly needed as a problem the show has had is how one tone it's been. This episode went a long way in proving it can do humour decently. It also let some of the characters evolve a little bit; Cameron's team of code monkeys seem like they'll be great additions.

[Crimson]

The last two episodes have been really great. A shame it's almost certainly getting cancelled.

[chalkitdown]

Nothing except the big three (BB, MM, TWD) ever got good ratings on AMC. You almost expect every new show they make to get cancelled. They really need to make something stick.