Halt and Catch Fire

The first five episodes of that third season are as good as anything I’ve seen on TV this year.

It would be easy for all this reinvention to feel jarring, or like Halt desperately racing from one idea to the next because the last one ran out of steam. But each transition has felt natural, earned, and of a piece with what came before.

Halt and Catch Fire--despite its frayed edges and a few humdrum subplots--has taken that mantra [“Good is the enemy of great”] to heart this year, approaching a status that reaches, and frequently surpasses, greatness.

Things don't really get moving until the second hour, but Halt's elegantly told tale about four people desperate to play a role in shaping the future remains impressively acted and timely as ever. [19/26 Aug 2016 p.104]

One of the better dramas on TV--particularly right now in the waning days of the summer.

Halt and Catch Fire finally seems to know how to fluidly move from one proverbial decibel to the next, all in the hope of finding a place where you feel comfortable being yourself.

In episodes that alternate percolating energy with quiet ruminations on loyalty, leadership and the ways in which people lie to themselves and others, the satisfying third season builds up an admirable head of steam and gives the core cast (including the wonderful and previously under-used Toby Huss) and guest star Annabeth Gish smart material to work with.

Aside from the occasional inspired hairstyle and music cue, Halt and Catch Fire’s sense of period detail has never seemed adequately obsessive. Yet I also find that the show has smoothed out enough kinks to become compelling on its own terms, which is often the case with slower shows.

The more Halt and Catch Fire continues to lean into the emergence of Cam and Donna as two of the major forces behind the show’s alternate-reality internet revolution, the more interested I am in seeing where it goes. Also, the more it does that, the more this series about the Silicon Valley before HBO’s Silicon Valley feels like must-watch TV, as opposed to just should-watch TV.

The new season takes time to reset, and the movement in the early episodes is slow. The character dynamics are solid, though, and the ’80s details continue to be spot on.