The new AMC drama “Halt” and Catch Fire had some big shoes to fill. Sliding into the “Mad Men” timeslot was struggle enough, but it also came along just as the only other computer whiz series, the very winning “Silicon Valley,” was just marking its first finale.
But for a series about writing code in the 80s, “Halt” has hung on to be more entertaining than expected, managing to create both drama and some interesting characters in the saga of creating an IBM competitor in Texas.
Last week’s debut ended with a sea of blue entering the Lone Star office park, about to sue or thoroughly intimidate the upstart that was thought to be in the midst of cloning its popular PC.
And while the beleaguered engineer Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy), plucked by Lee Pace’s flashy salesman Joe MacMillan, did manage to turn a tube inside out and reverse engineer a model, it was the fierce looking video gamer Pace’s character also found, Mackenzie Davis’ Cameron Howe who was tasked with coming up with the complicated formula on her own. She’s tasked with creating a Basic Input/Output System but they keep calling it BIOS so often you think they’re trying to sign for Verizon FiOS.
As Sunday’s episode began, the depositions were taking place and the principals were holding tight to their story – even the head of the company, John Bosworth, who was going along with the plan if only to keep the company going.
Perhaps thinking that the young spiky-haired woman before them couldn’t possibly come up with the code on her own, the IBM heavies retreated and soon she was given her own office in which to begin work.
It was under the watchful eye of a Cardiff Electric’s sole lawyer, but soon he was dozing and she was drawing on his face – or else blasting thrashy metal to drive him out and up her own creativity.
Clark also got his own office – a cushy corner one with windows, replacing his nebbishy cubicle. He was so jazzed up he went home to have some victory sex with his wife. But for some reason he let his wife believe that the new engineer Cameron Howe was a dude, which sort of came back to bite him in the show’s most inconsequential side story.
Life for him is mostly good, exemplified by the fact that every time he gets into his little car, Boz Scaggs is singing “Lido.” A better song selection came when they got the Richard Hell anthem “Blank Generation” to underscore a Cameron shoplifting spree which ended with men in suits pursuing her.
They weren’t security guards, they were from IBM, trying to lure her away.
IBM was conducting a raid on Cardiff, trying to even bring MacMillan back despite some still unexplained last day on the job incident ($2 million damage to the data center is mentioned).
The bigger steal is clients and after a frightful day15 companies jumped ship including the top three who constitute 68 percent of the business at Cardiff.
Now it looks like MacMillian is the villain, causing the Texas firm to implode in pursuit of his idea – a personal computer twice as fast at half the price.
He even worries himself. He goes out to a stereo shop going out of business and almost destroys the place as he accuses the manager of not seeing change coming.
This inspires him on his own mission (and makes him think of an addition to his vision: Portability! Handles!).
And in a big confrontation at the parking lot, Clark fights MacMillian and tears open his shirt, revealing an array of scars he said he got for being bullied as a child science nerd. It’s a weird speech, but it gets to the two others.
MacMillan declares the three of them are “all unreasonable people” and as such “success depends on our changing the world to fit us – not the other way around.”
It’s stirring at the time, but Cameron fact checks it and it doesn’t quite work out, timewise. It’s like an earlier speech at the company where MacMillan was quoting Steve Jobs without attribution: Besides having fun and making money, they can change how people work, live and interact – “We may just put a ding in the universe.”
As things were all in shambles, it turns out Cameron’s code is brilliant stuff, at least in Clark’s eyes. And all three of them show up for work the next morning to keep this company – and this series – going.
Next week, MacMillan has announcement about their new product: It won’t weigh any more than 15 pounds – a distinction that may cause a chuckle to any MacBook Air owners.