Halt And Catch Fire: Trailer, certificate and where to watch
Compelling US drama about the explosion in personal computing
Year: 2014-2017
Certificate: 15
This one definitely stayed under the radar, a quality US drama about the birth of personal computing that really should have had a readymade audience or at least have been appreciated more. Following a fictional computer company, it covers the period roughly around the emergence of Microsoft Word in 1983 through to the early days of the world wide web in the early 1990s.
It's considered a period piece, like Mad Men, and the size of the computers and the emerging tech seem as quaint and nostalgic as the Rolodexes and typewriters in that earlier show. But what's interesting is that the pace of change and thirst for the next big thing feels the same. Then, as now, those in the know in tech were feeling like the rest of the world was ten years behind.
If the show was just about computers and the geeks who built them it would be pretty dull, but the human drama here is very well done: sexy not geeky, thrilling not ponderous. It's about the people who saw the potential and pushed the technology forward. They didn't need to be nerds but they did need to be risk-takers and they also needed a self-assured, Porsche-driving yuppie type to thrust this agenda forward. Step up Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace), a former IBM salesman and cocky entrepreneur who steals the show. He's joined by Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis, playing the engineer and programming prodigy who make the binary magic happen. (Four series)
