The next time you need some high quality TV to binge, allow me to recommend Halt and Catch Fire. Halt is a show from AMC that just finished its fourth and final season; highly lauded but never quite generating the attention of Mad Men or other critical darlings. Much like Mad Men, it paints a complex narrative on the canvas of a specific era and industry. Rather than the advertising world of 1960s New York, it's the burgeoning computer and tech scene of the early 80s through mid-90s. The machinations of the industry provide compelling and fun story lines to follow as our players constantly struggle to get one step ahead of the game and find the right idea at the right time. We get to experience a number of different tech touchstones as a result; the birth of the personal computer, the birth of the internet, etc. However, the meat of the series are the characters themselves.
Gordon, Donna, Joe, Cameron and Boz all have very satisfying character arcs and experience massive, organic growth over the four seasons of the series. Lee Pace is particularly captivating as the Steve Jobs inspired Joe Macmillan. Joe begins as a tortured and highly volatile futurist. You'll have to watch to find out where he ends up, but the writers do a great job of making it feel like a natural progression.
A limited number of seasons is another reason to watch. The series feels fully realized and perfectly paced. The producers knew their end date at the moment they began, which means you aren't going to suffer through any filler, nor do you have to work through ten seasons to finish this thing out. You can be in and out in a couple weeks (or months) depending on your pace.
