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Halt and Catch Fire

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Halt & Catch Fire: the prestige drama to watch@serialfiller2212d

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The other day, to my great pleasure, I noticed that rai was broadcasting "Halt And Catch Fire".

As far as I am concerned I consider the Cristopher Cantwell series one of the absolute masterpieces of seriality of the last 10 years.

A top 10 series, so to speak.

That's why I was incredibly surprised to learn that Halt And Catch Fire would not only be broadcasted but it would be broadcast exclusively in Italy for the first time!

Considering that the first episode of the series is dated 2014 we are talking about a delay of 5 years!

This news on the one hand gave me the opportunity to remember that I had never talked about this jewel of TV and with this post I try to run for cover but on the other hand it also gave me the opportunity to reflect further on how often in Italy we continue to be behind with the times and the ways of broadcasting foreign series.

Halt and catch fire.

An Early computer command that sent the machine into a race conditions forcing all instructions to compete for superiority at once.

Control of the computer cannot be regained.

True is that Halt And Catch Fire is and will be a series that will be remembered ab Aeterno in my opinion for its indisputable quality but it's also true that it has never had a great success with the public and has often been excluded from the big prizes. A bit what happened to The Wire 2 decades ago. Never awarded and considered, the HBO series today is considered a cornerstone of TV.

Returning to the Cantwell series, it takes us back a few decades, within the technological boom that was exploding in the rooms of Silicon Valley. A boom that allowed the brightest minds of the time to chase their dreams in an attempt to innovate technology, discover new worlds and invent the future.

To do this, Cantwell designed 4 unforgettable characters for us.

Cameron Howe, Joe McMillian and Donna and Gordon Clark.

Between them the narrative threads will move, between loves, tragedies, friendships, collaborations, divorces, ideas, dreams and so on.

These were the years of the birth of the first PCs. We find logos, names and themes so familiar to us and the ghosts of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates omnipresent.

It's all about the characters though,

We talk about PCs, microcrontollers, games, network to have the pretext to talk about something else: the human being.

And few other series manage to do it as well as HACF.

Few other characters will stay in it like Cameron, Gordon, Donna and Joe.

4 very different characters, yet so complicatedly human and similar in their will to live, to assert themselves, to love.

A unique series that as Breaking Bad manages to be more beautiful with each episode.

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›'Halt and Catch Fire' Review: A rare show about a passion for technology and the sacrifices made to innovate with it@namiks2247d

I remember picking up the show quite a few years ago, but for some strange reason I decided to stop watching it, perhaps as a result of just piling on so many other films and television shows that just took reign and slowly phased out Halt and Catch Fire; I'm not entirely sure why I stopped watching it around the second season, but revisiting the show during quarantine has had me real appreciate its uniqueness yet again.

Halt and Catch Fire is a show, a show about technology. Displaying the boom of the home computer in the 80s and then the innovative rise of the Internet in the 90s. Though, Halt and Catch Fire isn't really about the rise of such technology, it's about the very human sacrifice of a group of friends that worked together to create such innovations, as the result of attempting to bring the world together through that technology causes the very complex breakdowns of their relationships that led to them creating in the first place.

Halt and Catch Fire's star is no singular individual, it's a show that moves from one person to another, providing depth to each character as the show's events shift and spiral into new outcomes and issues; each character is given an exceptional amount of time to flourish, as it's evident where they stand on any given issue and their reasons for being where they are. It becomes very evident that there's a very human core to the harsh and manipulative startup world. Using this, Halt and Catch Fire takes into consideration realistic approaches to real-world events within its narrative, forming a greater scale of significance and stakes at hand.

With great character development comes excellent writing, and with excellent writing comes a perfect cast and set of filmmakers. Halt and Catch Fire's world feels incredibly authentic. It doesn't thrive on the thought of nostalgia, despite the endless connections to an era long gone. It's carefully crafted to display the 80s and 90s in a manner that feels like its factual. As if you're peering back in time. Each scene is perfected with amazing lighting, cinematography and setting always compliments the space in which the characters unravel. A character sits in a dimly-lit office in their home, their surroundings covered with various books, pieces of hardware, and the faint glow of a Commodore 64, a beige keyboard fills the desk space, each punching of a key given its own weight and significance within the exploration of ideas within the show.

Everything is crafted to perfection. And Halt and Catch Fire knows it's both an ode to the birth of something huge, and an exploration of the struggles and pain it causes. As the show progresses, we see a beautiful amount of passion for the world of technology from its characters, and we witness the ways it begins to poison them, as their own agendas take over, as the manipulative world of financing enters and turns people against each other and the technology is no longer the focus: money is. Success finds the characters, but the cost isn't a question, it's in front of us the entire time. However, despite the ways the characters disconnect, and their agendas push them away from one-another, they fall back on each other every time.

What does this say exactly? Well, a lot: this group of characters may be manipulative, cold, fueled by greed or passion, but they know what they want and how to get it. And with each season focusing on a different era or character's own development within the boom of computing, there's a fundamental reason for the group to come back to each other and get something done. It's rare to see this type of development within a show, in which characters are blatantly bad people when given a reason to be, but the humanity within remains. Ultimately, that's what Halt and Catch Fire is about: the humanity of an individual with a strong passion for something. Characters see they are weak and have different agendas, but manage to put such differences aside to focus on what's important.

It's rare to see such a show, one that's faithful to its time period, that focuses on technology in a way that explores it at a human level, and not just the financial side in which everyone's a genius that gets stupidly rich. It's a love-letter to technology, but one that fully acknowledges the sacrifices made to bring it where it is today. It's riddled with passion both by the filmmakers, and the writing; it truly understands the space its creating and the story it told. I'll definitely miss it.

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›Halt And Catch Fire: Una serie imperdibile ed indimenticabile@serialfiller2632d
L'altro giorno con mio sommo piacere ho notato che la rai stava trasmettendo "Halt And Catch Fire".

Per quanto mi riguarda reputo la serie di Cristopher Cantwell uno dei capolavori assoluti della serialità degli ultimi 10 anni.

Una serie da top 10 per intenderci.

Ecco perchè nell'approfondire tempi e modi della messa in onda di mamma Rai della serie mi ha stupito incredibilmente l'apprendere che Halt And Catch Fire non solo sarebbe stata trasmessa ma sarebbe stata trasmessa in esclusiva ed in prima visione assoluta in Italia!

Considerando che la prima puntata della serie è datata 2014 parliamo di un ritardo di ben 5 anni!

Questa notizia da un lato mi ha dato modo di ricordarmi che non avevo mai parlato di questo gioiello della tv e con questo post provo a correre ai ripari ma dall'altro mi ha anche dato modo di riflettere ulteriormente di quanto spesso in Italia si continui ad essere indietro con i tempi e i modi di trasmissione di serie straniere.

Halt and catch fire.

An Early computer command that sent the machine into a race conditions forcing all instructions to compete for superiority at once.

Control of the computer cannot be regained.

Vero è che Halt And Catch Fire è e sarà una serie che verrà ricordata ab Aeterno a mio avviso per la sua indiscutibile qualità ma è anche vero che essa non ha mai avuto un grande successo di pubblico ed è stata spesso esclusa dai grandi premi. Un pò quello che accadde a The Wire 2 decenni fa. Mai premiata e considerata, la serie della HBO oggi è considerata un caposaldo della tv.

Immagine priva di diritti di copyright

Tornando alla serie di Cantwell essa ci porta indietro di qualche decennio, all'interno del boom tecnologico che deflagrava nelle stanze della Silicon Valley. Un Boom che consentì alle menti più brillanti dell'epoca di rincorrere i propri sogni nel tentativo di innovare la teconologia, scoprire nuovi mondi e inventare il futuro.

Per farlo Cantwell disegna per noi 4 personaggi indimenticabili.

Cameron Howe, Joe McMillian ed i coniugi Donna e Gordon Clark.

Tra loro si muoveranno i fili della narrazione, fra amori, tragedie, amicizie, collaborazioni, divorzi, idee, sogni e chi più ne ha più ne metta.

Erano gli anni della nascita dei primi PC. Ritroviamo loghi, nomi e temi a noi tanto familiari ed i fantasmi di Steve Jobs e Bill Gates onnipresenti.

Si muove tutto intorno ai personaggi però,

Si parla di PC, di microcrontollori, di giochi, di rete per avere il pretesto di parlare di altro: dell'essere umano.

E poche altre serie riescono a farlo bene come HACF.

Pochi altri personaggi vi resteranno dentro come Cameron, Gordon, Donna e Joe.

4 Personaggi diversissimi eppure cosi complicatamente umani e simili nella voglia di vivere, affermarsi, amare.

Una serie irripetibile che come Breaking Bad riesce ad essere più bella ad ogni episodio.

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›'Halt and Catch Fire' Season One Review@namiks3000d

Ending with a vast majority of people not even knowing it existed, Halt and Catch Fire was an excellent drama that displayed the life of computer scientists in the hardware bubble of the 1980's.

The first season feels a little slow, but starts with an ambitious group of friends engineering and creating their own personal computer, which they eventually plan to further develop and release to the market, competing alongside the giant that is IBM, and other smaller personal computing manufacturers.

Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy), being both a visionary and engineer, is set on fighting the status quo and revolutionising the world of personal computing with his inventions, but it soon results in a race to fight off all competition, while ensuring no other company can access and reverse-engineer his.

The show focuses on the dramatic tension behind constant competition; the threat of owning a startup that could at any minute go under and fail to meet expectations as a result of lack of funding or concept theft. The characters find themselves in a tech bubble and battle royale.

While the first season's events can feel somewhat exaggerated for the purpose of the drama, the writing and character development remains tightly kept, with the show's ability to portray this world accurately in the front-line. It allows for an interesting watch if you're fond of the gritty, difficult lifestyle of computer engineering and boom of technology in the 80's.

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