Halt and Catch Fire Syllabus (2021)
21 comments
·August 24, 2025kennywinker
floren
I recently finished it too! I was pretty over it by the final season, but then the last few episodes brought me back around.
Cameron "it's all in the eyes" Howe annoyed the shit out of me at pretty much all points, which I understand is how they wrote the character but it walked a line of almost making me quit the show. As with the show as a whole, though, she brought me around a bit in the last few eps.
hnlmorg
I was largely disappointed. The subject matter was special but the execution was over the top. Every time I was starting to get drawn in, there would be another affair, car crash, exploding lorry or something else just as forced. I can’t even remember the number of times it felt like they’d “jumped the shark” in even just the first season alone.
There really wasn’t any need for half the dumb shit they did in that show. It didn’t add to the drama, it just made the whole thing feel completely fake. Which is impressive considering they’re writing largely about real world computing history.
And don’t get me started on the characters themselves. I think I liked maybe half the cast. The others made me cringe every time they were on screen.
It’s such a pity because they could have just as successful show if they refined it a little.
bananaboy
I 100% agree. I couldn’t finish it and bailed during the first season. It was all just so over the top!
I thought Micro Men was way better executed as a comparison point https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Men
kennywinker
Completely different show after season 1, I almost bailed at the end of s01 too. But also, different strokes for different folks :)
aspenmayer
This complaint largely lands on the same points as the ones against Mr. Robot, and it has some merit, but the shows are made for cable TV audiences, so they're a bit more niche than broadcast shows, but they're mass market vehicles. They're nearly pushing a rope to make this content entertaining at all. If people cared, they'd already know the history and the social implications of the technology, as well as the personalities involved. These kinds of shows are meant to bring more folks into the industry and help folks see the humanity in each other and in themselves if they're in it. Most folks don't watch tv for anything but storylines and personalities, so historical or current relevance in entertainment is something I'll take where and when I can get it.
What are some tech shows that you like, or dramas, for context?
hnlmorg
I’m not suggesting the show should be factually accurate. I’m saying it doesn’t need pyrotechnics to be engaging.
Mr Robot was a different beast because that was literally about criminal and hacker culture. So you’d expect a little action in that regard.
To put it another way: you have shows that have strong enough writers where they don’t need gimmicks to keep your attention. And you have shows that are intentionally about the gimmicks. Then you have shows that aren’t about the gimmicks but the writers don’t have enough confidence in their work to avoid putting them in anyway.
Shows like The West Wing, House of Cards etc aren’t about gimmicks and don’t need them.
Shows like Stargate are about the gimmicks. And that’s ok too because you know it’s meant to be silly drama.
But shows like HCF feel like they should be executed like HoCs, yet they’re written like Mr Robot, Stargate, etc. So it’s very jarring to watch every time another gimmick gets thrown in. Maybe I expected too much from that show? But it just felt like they didn’t have any confidence in people’s attention spans.
awesome_dude
Silicon Cowboys[1] came out roughly the same time, and it always struck me how similar the first season of HCF was to the actual documentary of Compaq's rise
swaptr
> “Computers aren’t the thing; they’re the thing that gets us to the thing.”
I used to be overly pedantic about the kinds of things programmers often obsess over—like micro-benchmarks, the whole “I use Arch, by the way” attitude, and other obnoxious quirks. But this quote stuck with me and helped me move past that shallow, one-upmanship view of computers. Great show to ones who haven't watched yet.
throw0101c
It was observed at the time that it passed:
> The Bechdel test (/ˈbɛkdəl/ ⓘ BEK-dəl),[1] also known as the Bechdel-Wallace test, is a measure of the representation of women in film and other fiction. The test asks whether a work features at least two women who have a conversation about something other than a man. Some versions of the test also require that those two women have names.[2]
dang
Discussed at the time (of the article):
Halt and Catch Fire Syllabus - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25912241 - Jan 2021 (173 comments)
riazrizvi
Very nice! Love the CRT TV style. In terms of approach I’m a bit confused by the call for a ‘book club style watch party’ and the content which follows an education course format. With the first I expect a CTA button to join a session, maybe a scheduled Discord session or Sign-Up list for interest of same. So maybe the format of the program is an online meetup, with a short talk, and then discussion. The point here is community.
With the second I expect a CTA for a course, with the end result being some type of qualification, perhaps conformance to the startup mentality of the key characters, to help people form groups. The point there is to advance projects and also set yourself up as an authority.
At the moment it feels like a not-so-strong mix of the two.
drannex
One of the greatest shows ever created, absolutely amazing resource here.
tbir
Billion Dollar Code on Netlfix is a nice apertif to run the same experiment (watch club + research) on in a shorter commitment budget.
shortrounddev2
I liked HCF as a show but I couldnt stand Cameron. It seems like you could always rely on her to do the wrong thing
floren
Somewhere in season 2 I realized that a huge portion of Cameron was just "say something needlessly hostile or combative, then emphasize it by making your eyes really wide"
TZubiri
This looks like one of the best weekend plans I've seen in a long time. Will see if anyone locally is up for it.
The length of the plan seems like a DnD campaign in terms of length though, it's roughly 3 months of consistent activities, but it may be worth it.
alephnerd
Personally, I felt HCF was a much better reflection of the tech industry compared to Silicon Valley.
While I love both shows to death, I feel HCF really nailed a lot of the emotional and interpersonal aspects that come with entrepreneurship, venture capital, and engineering leadership.
It was also great watching HCF with my dad who started his career during the tail end of the show, and could call out a number of the technical aspects (eg. PBXes, the COBOL vs OOP wars, the search engine wars, etc).
I recently watched all of Halt and Catch Fire, and i have to say it is a really special show. The first season is fun, but it really comes into its own in the following seasons, exploring long relationships, friendship, growth, and love in ways that really surprised me. Highly recommend.