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29athrowaway 8 hours ago

The first seasons were excellent, the latter seasons not so much.

chucksmash 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Interesting. Different strokes I suppose. I loved this show but in the beginning they put too much emphasis on Lee Pace's character for my taste. Just kind of "ooooh, what will the brooding. mysterious maverick in a suit with a dark past do next? So unpredictable" and it didn't really resonate with me like the later seasons did.

In the same way that the beginning of Parks and Rec feels like they were setting out to make a version of The Office before it really became its own thing, the first season of HaCF felt like "what if we had a Don Draper type but instead it was Texas in the 80s?"

29athrowaway 7 hours ago | parent [-]

The latter seasons have memorable thought-provoking moments but they are sparse.

They could have compressed those into fewer episodes and it would have been more watchable.

tsunamifury 7 hours ago | parent [-]

You must be young.

tptacek 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Seasons 3 and 4 did a really good job of capturing what it was like being in the industry and in SFBA in the mid/late 1990s, better than anything I've seen. I worked at McAfee (then NETA) at the time and the MCAF-ish stuff was uncanny; the last gasp of cubicle culture in the software product industry.

I liked the storytelling in it, but, like I said earlier, it's pretty Six Feet Under-ish, in that as it progresses it is less and less about the original concept of the show and more about the relationships between characters built up over years of episodes. Whether that's a good or bad thing for you depends in part on how much fan service you want; it's why I find Mr. Robot completely unwatchable.

TurdF3rguson 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Except that Mr Robot was always planned that way, you can go back and see references to what's revealed in the final episodes as early as the pilot. Things are revealed at the end of S1 that make you have to re-evaluate what you've seen so far. The same is probably even more true for S4.

Maybe that's a challenge for the audience to stay with it, but it's definitely worth it for the payoff.

And those s04 episode titles matching http error codes? That might be the most masterful thing I've ever seen pulled off from a TV show.

protocolture 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I really love season 1, because of its specific technical detail.

But the other seasons were great in their own ways too. Random PC revolution personalities showing up in dotcom startups was both disjointed and inspired.

1970-01-01 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Objectively it was consistently good but not great.

https://www.ratingraph.com/tv-shows/halt-and-catch-fire-rati...

29athrowaway 7 hours ago | parent [-]

The first season was the best season, and it's probably a good stopping point.