Halt And Catch Fire – The Complete First Season: Blu-ray Review
A former IBM executive, Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace) plans to reverse engineer the flagship product of his former employer and force his current company, Cardiff Electric, into the personal computer race. MacMillan enlists the help of Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy), a once-great engineer who dreams of creating a revolutionary product while trying to manage his initially unsupportive wife Donna, and Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis), a volatile prodigy who puts her future in jeopardy to join MacMillan’s rogue PC project.
The very first computer that I ever worked on was an Apple II and couldn’t get enough of technology. From there I read everything I could get my hands on regarding the history of computers so fast forward to this show and when finding about the premise of this show I was really interested in checking it out. AMC is the “go to” network when it comes to cable dramas and they definitely have another hit on their hands. Since it was about the early days of computers it made me go back to all the memories and the love I had for computers early on. The thing about this show though is that it depicts exactly what was going on at the time of the big PC boom and in a very realistic way. Everyone was clamoring to be first or to have the best and most innovative machine at the time and this show really makes you feel the hunger for excellence within the characters. The best thing about it is that they also show the personal lives of those involved as well and that creates a lot of great drama. I’m a huge fan of Scoot McNairy and Lee Pace so I was kind of biased when I went into the show but both actors blew me away with their chemistry and how they would go back and forth with each other. At the same time they keep the intensity going throughout without skipping a beat. Mackenzie Davis was a fantastic part of this show. She provided a great dynamic that would go toe to toe with any of the other guys easily. This show is one of those few that will hit with the tech crowd as well as any other person that loves good dramatic programming. Go out and pick it up today. 9/10
Special Features:
Inside Episodes 101-110 – Summaries of each episode on the season.
Re-Making the 80s – Taking a look at the time period of the show and how they were able to make it feel realistic.
Rise of the Digital Cowboys – A look at the area outside of Dallas where all of the magic happened as well as examining the characters and the path they take.
Setting the Fire: Research and Technology – This feature looks at the Texas tech industry and how they were able to accurately pull from reality and transfer it to making a TV Show.
