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pentyne
Nov 7, 2012
Well, it seems like Gordon and Donna have managed to come back from the trauma of their Comdex confrontation. That’s nice to see.

Looks like Cameron is taking a page from the Joe playbook of destroying the gently caress out of stuff when she doesn’t get her way.

Ah, Old Man Cardiff being an rear end in a top hat to Joe and Gordon. “gently caress you, I’ll destroy this entire project to spite y’all”. Shocker, he orders Joe and Gordon to take charge of the entire operation, then postures again, and gets shut down again. I kind of feel like Cardiff is going to round of the local Klan to drag Joe out into a field and beat the living poo poo out of him after a year or so.

OF loving COURSE THEY REFERENCE THE FAMOUS APPLE SUPERBOWL AD. And they can’t show a single frame because they’d have to pay Apple. All it does is now make Joe the disillusioned idealist wanting to ascend to greater goals and Gordon has to repeatedly shoot him down with “This sells in 6 weeks stop being a moron”.

Ah, classic internet sound. So, Cameron invented the internet/AOL? I’m not really sure what they were doing with all the tech-speak, I guess Cameron did some off the books engineering at the phone company to make it happen?

Ah, great we get another Cameron speech on how dull and boring the computer industry is and how she refuses to be a part of something that will be a “historical footnote”. Then she insults Joe by referencing when his mother dropped him (what the gently caress?) and calls him a deluded child.

AHH WHAT THE gently caress CAMERON LAUNCHES HER OWN COMPANY AND EVERY CARDIFF CODING EMPLOYEE JUMPS SHIP? Okay, this show is officially dead. After the previous episode where someone else created a revenge company they do the exact same loving thing AGAIN. And somehow anyone takes Cameron seriously, the disgruntled angry tech idealist who wants to start a business in her lovely house? We get a delightful scene where Donna rejects Cameron’s offer as some petty revenge move then the show completely goes back on in by having Donna decide to join Cameron’s idealist anarchist company doomed to fail after all.

And we finally get the cherry on this poo poo sundae, Joe highjacks the first truck shipment, drives it to some random location, THEN TORCHES THE loving TRUCK.

Yeah, this show deserves to die.

As the kicker, Gordon looks weird as gently caress without his beard.

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Jake Armitage
Dec 11, 2004

+69 Pimp

hohum posted:

It sounds like Cameron is inventing AOL

More like Prodigy. Prodigy had games (which it seems the Mutiny coders are big on) and also had a deal for subscribers to get a modem when you signed up, if I remember correctly.

That finale was... not horrible. The whole season was not horrible. Could have been better, but hell, I enjoyed it. But the finale was full of the same problem that really all of it was -- a whole bunch of forced "whoah" moments that make literally no one in the audience think "whoah". None of it earned, none of it really genuine. I think if the writers get their act together, they could create something really great out of what they started here, though.

Jose Pointero
Feb 16, 2004

We're not just doing this for money. We're doing it for a SHITLOAD of money!

I have mixed feelings about the show but I think it deserves a second season at least. I just want to see where they're going with it, really. The acting is decent, they've done a good job with the sets, wardrobe and music. There's good stuff here but the writing has kinda been all over the place. Give them another season and lets see if they can make something coherent out of it.

Technical accuracy ranting: Those modem handshake tones were of the 36.6/56k era.

Gonz
Dec 22, 2009

"Jesus, did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?"
If I could go the rest of my life without ever hearing another goddamn modem handshake noise, I would consider that a success. That sound was the bane of my computer-using existence for far, far too long as a child.

Jose Pointero
Feb 16, 2004

We're not just doing this for money. We're doing it for a SHITLOAD of money!

Gonz posted:

If I could go the rest of my life without ever hearing another goddamn modem handshake noise, I would consider that a success. That sound was the bane of my computer-using existence for far, far too long as a child.
When I was a kid I desoldered and removed or filled the on-card speakers of every modem I had with silicone. I used to stay up all night on the internet during the week when I was supposed to be asleep; I'd need to redial and those drat things would blow my cover and wake my parents up and they'd get pissed off!

Cool Cherry Cream
Jun 15, 2013
I liked it even if I didn't find it compelling* for a season finale. At least up until they christened the shipment and I immediately knew Joe was going to do something crazy like light it on fire and then he precisely does that. I thought Donna and Gordon fighting last week was uncalled for, but everything was peachy and then some in this episode, so that's forgiven. I cringed at the Mutiny graffiti, but thought Cameron's speech was tame compared to the PUNK ROCK ANARCHY I was expecting. Her ripping into Joe was childish, but at this point it's a character trait, so it's forgiven. Joe lighting the truck on fire and then standing there contemplating? Am I supposed to find it cool? Deep?

I hatewatch The Leftovers, but I was always rooting for this show. I'd watch a second season. If not, well thanks for filling the post-Mad Men Sunday night tv fix! gently caress what's next week.


*Really the only Oh poo poo moment was Gordon sans beard.

Soy Division
Aug 12, 2004

I hope this show gets renewed, but they need to shake up the writing team big time. There's the bones of a good show here but this season was spoiled by hamfisted, cliched screenwriting.

Meatwave
Feb 21, 2014

Truest Detective - Work Crew Division.
:dong::yayclod:
Is it just me, or was the intro slightly different this episode?

Also here's an interview with the show creators:
http://www.tvguide.com/News/Halt-and-Catch-Fire-Season1-Finale-Postmortem-1085225.aspx

It's an interesting read, but I don't like it that they're not committed to having Bosworth in Season 2 (if it happens). To me, that's a total no brainer.

Meatwave fucked around with this message at 10:29 on Aug 4, 2014

hypersleep
Sep 17, 2011

It's unfortunate I have to rip on the main female character here, since I'm not one of those "lol girls can't computer" people, but Cameron was an utterly unbelievable character pretty much right from the start, and she only got worse as the show progressed. By the finale she's gone full Lisbeth Salandar, into the realm of "is there anything this character can't do?" A lot of very improbable stuff happens in this show with the other characters, but none of them become as utterly eye-rolling as Cameron. Kudos to the actress who portrayed her, because she did really drat well considering the awful material they gave her.

The episode where Joe's gay lover showed up also felt pretty tacky, as if the writers remembered the show is set in the 80s and thought "Let's put in a gay character who has HIV/AIDS! That would be so topical!"

It's pretty unfortunate this series didn't have better writers because it's a great concept that got saddled with mediocre plotting.

Soy Division
Aug 12, 2004

1983 is also before AIDS really got into full swing, I don't think people really started dropping dead en masse until the mid 80s.

Rap Game Goku
Apr 2, 2008

Word to your moms, I came to drop spirit bombs


For all its problems, I liked this show. Maybe its the subject matter. I'm curious to see where things will go in the next season should it get one.

That said, it needs to be more like episode 9 and less like the rest. All of the characters are genuinely unlikeable when they're butting heads. The best parts of the show were when they were getting along and doing the stuff they kept arguing about.

Factor Mystic
Mar 20, 2006

Baby's First Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
I liked the finale. I want to see the Giant make the jump to running Windows, and the GUI revolution, and the birth of the web. More time jumps to get there is fine by me.

Cool Cherry Cream posted:

Joe lighting the truck on fire and then standing there contemplating? Am I supposed to find it cool? Deep?

No, you're supposed to see it as infantile and stupid. Joe lashing out because Joe isn't in control is very in character. He sabotaged the secretary's PC earlier in the episode to delay shipment to build a killer app, after all. He's a psychopath with control issues.

hypersleep posted:

It's unfortunate I have to rip on the main female character here, since I'm not one of those "lol girls can't computer" people, but Cameron was an utterly unbelievable character pretty much right from the start, and she only got worse as the show progressed.

This statement doesn't really make any sense. Donna and Cameron are main characters who are women who are both demonstrated to be brilliant in their work. As I posted previously, Cameron's problems aren't "bad writing" because it's the character as designed who is an immature person: "Cameron is brilliant, needs a guardian" is basically who she is in a phrase, and everything she does can be summed up by that. It's part of why she's attracted to Joe, it's why she liked/teamed with/was sad to leave Bosworth, and it's part of why she respects Donna.

Cameron lashing out and being a child and breaking things and spraypainting the walls isn't bad writing because it's completely within the bounds of the character as designed: a 20 year old college dropout hacker prodigy who doesn't have anyone to tell her "no" about anything, (and like Joe) will throw a fit when she doesn't get her way. Check on all fronts. Now she's off starting a revolution (in her mind), nobody has titles! equity for all! (forget about the actual hard work of running an actual business).

Factor Mystic fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Aug 4, 2014

Jake Armitage
Dec 11, 2004

+69 Pimp

Factor Mystic posted:

Cameron lashing out and being a child and breaking things and spraypainting the walls isn't bad writing because it's completely within the bounds of the character as designed: a 20 year old college dropout hacker prodigy

No, hypersleep is right. The "design" of this character is idiotic, and there is no way to write her well because of that design. I know people want to believe this myth of the hot, renegade, brilliant but troubled cowboy hacker but it is not reality in the least. Its like someone saw that mugshot of Bill Gates and ignored literally every other thing they ever heard about Bill Gates and imagined him as some rebel outlaw. Or they think Steve Jobs was the guy writing all the code at Apple because they never heard of Wozniak. It's not realistic in 2014, and it most definitely wasn't realistic in 1983.

The kind of work she is doing requires experience and focus, but they chose to give that job to an inexperienced, unfocused mess, and we're supposed to believe that she excels at it. It has nothing to do with her being a woman, it has everything to do with her being an immature child with no experience "changing the world" at her first job, on her first project, alone, while throwing tantrums every other minute. The character is bad, so of course the writing is going to be bad.

Moltke
May 13, 2009

Jake Armitage posted:

It's not realistic in 2014, and it most definitely wasn't realistic in 1983.

This is a fictionalized portrayal of the past and these characters are fake! Cameron has been well characterized as both a coding prodigy and a flippant child. There is nothing unbelievable about that! Walter White spent 30 years teaching high school chemistry and suddenly developed enormous talent in meth making (and lots of other management skills with which he had no prior experience!) and no one blinked an eye (because female characters seem to be held to different standards of "believability" than male characters here).

Moltke fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Aug 4, 2014

Fair Bear Maiden
Jun 17, 2013
I actually enjoyed this season finale, which is more than I could have imagined a few weeks ago. The series has been really really turgid for the most part, it's been desperately drumming on the same story beats without coherency for a good 6-7 episodes, but the final leg almost redeemed it (although not without its problems!).

By the way, Cameron: it's way too early to make Steam.

Factor Mystic
Mar 20, 2006

Baby's First Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

Jake Armitage posted:

No, hypersleep is right. The "design" of this character is idiotic, and there is no way to write her well because of that design.

...

The kind of work she is doing requires experience and focus, but they chose to give that job to an inexperienced, unfocused mess, and we're supposed to believe that she excels at it.

...

it has everything to do with her being an immature child with no experience "changing the world" at her first job, on her first project, alone, while throwing tantrums every other minute.

...

The character is bad, so of course the writing is going to be bad.

You and I are agreeing, except for the last bit. "The character is bad" is different than "the character is a bad person". I don't think the character is written poorly, but the character is kind of a poor person- as we both said, a tantrum throwing child. I've posted this exact thing earlier in this thread.

That a character is a tantrum throwing child doesn't mean they're written poorly. It also doesn't mean they're unrealistic to real life (although "proximity to real life" was not an evaluation criteria in my previous post). You don't have to look very hard irl to find even experienced devs throwing tantrums and verbally spraypainting walls. Go read our very own Cavern of Cobol subforum for awhile to see devs shouting at each other.

I agree Cameron's work requires focus, and so do the writers - that's probably why they had like 5 episodes where she's in a room by herself with her headphones on, typing hard, scribbling on a whiteboard, then getting up and throwing something or hitting delete a lot. But then as soon as she's faced with non-coding problems (like business decisions to not use her My First Basic Program OS) she throws a fit and runs away. Again, not "bad writing" as much as "plausible action by a character who's immature".

Now, I'm not really arguing that this should make you like Cameron more, or like the show more. You're obviously free to continue not being entertained. But I don't think it's fair to misinterpret what the writers are laying down.

Truther Vandross
Jun 17, 2008

The show has an abundance of flaws, but it also has a good amount of potential to it and considering where I felt it was headed 4-5 weeks ago, it actually turned out pretty well.

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

This finale was basically a parody of the entire season, like a loving checklist of things that they did in order to summarize things for anyone who had skipped it.

POS show, I won't be back next season.

Mighty Horse
Jul 24, 2007

Speed, Class, Bankruptcy.

Jose Pointero posted:

When I was a kid I desoldered and removed or filled the on-card speakers of every modem I had with silicone. I used to stay up all night on the internet during the week when I was supposed to be asleep; I'd need to redial and those drat things would blow my cover and wake my parents up and they'd get pissed off!

ATM0 dude. ATM0.

Jake Armitage posted:

More like Prodigy. Prodigy had games (which it seems the Mutiny coders are big on) and also had a deal for subscribers to get a modem when you signed up, if I remember correctly.


I would say closer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Link and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_(video_game)

Which started life as a C64 dial up network sold by the hour....and eventually morphed into AOL.

wormil
Sep 12, 2002

Hulk will smoke you!
While sitting on the crapper, I was trying to sum up my feelings about the finale and season in general then it came to me ... This season was a metaphor from the writer's POV of the creative team and effort that was pulled together to make this mess. Joe represents the showrunner who has big ideas and the talent to pull people into his vision but is a control freak and never satisfied with his creation. Gordon represents the suits, grounded in and hindered by practicality, plagued by past failures, whose vision is lost and just wants a profitable product and his Porsche. Cameron represents the writers, brilliant and carefree, still immature but if the others would recognize her brilliance and worship her ideas they could create something groundbreaking. In the end, Joe burns the product, Cameron goes off to change the world, and Gordon is left holding the bag. It's a writer's wet dream.

Fooz
Sep 26, 2010


Why do they make every character so annoying and selfish? Why can't anyone ever act in the interest of others? Has there been one episode in which someone doesn't ruin everything for tenuous reasons?

If there's a season 2 I want to open with Joe and Cameron homeless, for having made terrible decisions.

Jose Pointero
Feb 16, 2004

We're not just doing this for money. We're doing it for a SHITLOAD of money!

Mighty Horse posted:

ATM0 dude. ATM0.
Hahahaha drat, I'm always doin' poo poo the hard way.

Toast Museum
Dec 3, 2005

30% Iron Chef

Fooz posted:

Why do they make every character so annoying and selfish? Why can't anyone ever act in the interest of others? Has there been one episode in which someone doesn't ruin everything for tenuous reasons?

Boz covers up Cameron's role in the theft. Granted, it was his idea in the first place, and it did nearly ruin everything, but the cover-up itself was relatively selfless.

Overall, though, yeah, kinda selfish crowd.

Hed
Mar 31, 2004

Fun Shoe
It sounds like they filmed scenes for twelve episodes then realized they only got ten. That's the only reason they rushed over everything in the last episode.

Also I love that Cameron invented QPSK or whatever while sitting in the basement for an unexplained amount of time. I enjoyed the show but man I look forward to some better pacing next season, assuming it gets renewed.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

Jose Pointero posted:

Technical accuracy ranting: Those modem handshake tones were of the 36.6/56k era.

Oh. Thank God I wasn't the only person to go all :spergin: about it.

BogDew
Jun 14, 2006

E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli
God this show was so, muddled in where it wanted to go. I think the biggest issues is having to hold them back from achieving implausible leaps and bounds with technology and I recall reading somewhere the slight struggles in getting people to not drip off terms as if they were everyday.

What worked is when they were given actual situations and challenges to fight against, the rest of the time it sort of was mired in household drama for the week - even the half half affair wasn't really much of an impact.

The finale was interesting in that the characters sort of changed places. Gordon became Joe, Cameron became Gordon (circa his mainframe glory days) Donna sort of follows, and Joe realised he couldn't hold up the image of himself anymore so heads bush to find himself.

Beyond that, the rest of the episode was pretty flat and somewhat anticlimactic, they achieve the goal - despite Joe burning some of the stock and season 2 (if any) hangs on the balance of the fact Gordon has no idea what's next, Cameron certainly does and Joe's channeling a "Steve Jobs in the wilderness of India / The NEXT exile" on a budget.

The other thing was there was no real payoff to almost any of the dramatic situations, no one mentions the stock being lost - unless it was claimed as damages, and Donna's mid life crisis is sort of glossed over - Gordon doesn't seem to bat an eyelid while she hangs around the house getting high and eating oreos.

The whole thing really could have worked as a Season 2 opener as it does set the stage for the whole team going separate ways and having to find a way to come together to make the next best thing.

BogDew fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Aug 5, 2014

Kelfeftaf
Sep 9, 2011
The ratings for this show have been abysmal. I doubt it sticks around.

http://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/halt-and-catch-fire-season-one-ratings-32782/

.
Sun 6/1/2014 01-01 0.34 1.190

.
Sun 6/8/2014 01-02 0.32 -5.88% 1.395 17.23%

.
Sun 6/15/2014 01-03 0.20 -37.50% 0.765 -45.16%

.
Sun 6/22/2014 01-04 0.35 75.00% 0.844 10.33%

.
Sun 6/29/2014 01-05 0.20 -42.86% 0.575 -31.87%

.
Sun 7/6/2014 01-06 0.24 20.00% 0.718 24.87%

.
Sun 7/13/2014 01-07 0.26 8.33% -100.00%

.
Sun 7/20/2014 01-08 0.25 -3.85% #DIV/0!

.
Sun 7/27/2014 01-09 0.19 -24.00% 0.549 #DIV/0!

strangemusic
Aug 7, 2008

I shield you because I need charge
Is not because I like you or anything!


Cool Cherry Cream posted:

Joe lighting the truck on fire and then standing there contemplating? Am I supposed to find it cool? Deep?

I don't care, I practically stood up and cheered because they played SUUNS.

strangemusic fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Aug 5, 2014

wormil
Sep 12, 2002

Hulk will smoke you!
I will be shocked if this gets a second season and it doesn't deserve one. I stuck around because the show had potential and had the writers settled down and wrote the story we (or most of us) wanted to see, it could have been good. But the finale turned the whole season into a joke on viewers and felt like they were flipping us the bird.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

wormil posted:

I will be shocked if this gets a second season and it doesn't deserve one. I stuck around because the show had potential and had the writers settled down and wrote the story we (or most of us) wanted to see, it could have been good. But the finale turned the whole season into a joke on viewers and felt like they were flipping us the bird.

No, the writers probably thought they were the next Mad Men. Having half the company leave to start a new competing company is exactly what happened in Season 3 Mad Men. I think the writers were so desperate to pitch the next Emmy winning AMC show they sold the concept as 80s Mad Men in the computer wars, then for lack of a better idea took the 3 main cast Don/Pete/Peggie concept, slapped on the 80s cliches, and then just ran with it.

GutBomb
Jun 15, 2005

Dude?
It seemed really disjointed that they skipped so much, and really cheesy that they had Joe literally walking off into the sunset.

But who am I kidding? I'm still going to watch if it comes back because I'm a sucker for stories about that era. Fire in the Valley and On The Edge: The Rise and Fall of Commodore are some awesome books for people that are interested in the beginning of personal computing. I grew up with a Commodore VIC-20 and even through this show's flaws like the tacked on 80's bullshit like the cabbage patch plot and the completely unrealistic Cameron character this show evokes a lot of nostalgia for the excitement of computing in that era.

I liked seeing the VIC-20 box in the garage in this episode. They do a much better job of making things look like the 80s on this show than on The Americans.

Kelfeftaf
Sep 9, 2011
It's not great, but it's better than any of the other garbage on AMC. But no one seems to really like it and the ratings are in the terlet.

They should have kept Rubicon. Dummies.

TheRationalRedditor
Jul 17, 2000

WHO ABUSED HIM. WHO ABUSED THE BOY.
That finale really seems like they found out their order was cut by 2 episodes when they were 6 scripts deep or something. There was a whole lotta jumping to conclusions, even by the precedent the show had set for itself.

hypersleep
Sep 17, 2011

There's no way it's coming back, not with those numbers posted above.

Truther Vandross
Jun 17, 2008

All I could think watching the finale was that Donna should be April O'Neil in the TMNT movie instead of Megan Fox.

Kelfeftaf
Sep 9, 2011
Donna's too old to be April O'Neill. Plus, a TMNT movie (why was this made, again?) is for the birds. I hope Donna goes on to land good roles after this show gets inevitably dumped by AMC.

wooger
Apr 16, 2005

YOU RESENT?

Kelfeftaf posted:

Donna's too old to be April O'Neill. Plus, a TMNT movie (why was this made, again?) is for the birds. I hope Donna goes on to land good roles after this show gets inevitably dumped by AMC.

What? The actress looks about 25 at most, she'd be great.

So, did other people not turn off / kill the speaker on their modem after the first couple of times they connected? I never heard that noise more than twice during the whole dialup era.

It does sound the same as ZX Spectrum game tape loading noises though, for obvious reasons.

Kelfeftaf
Sep 9, 2011

wooger posted:

What? The actress looks about 25 at most, she'd be great.

You're thinking of Cameron. Donna is Gordon's wife.

wooger
Apr 16, 2005

YOU RESENT?

Kelfeftaf posted:

You're thinking of Cameron. Donna is Gordon's wife.

Yup, that's her. She looks about 25. Dresses a bit older in this, but I don't recall April O'Neill being a teenager.

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Ubiquitous_
Nov 20, 2013

by Reene

wooger posted:

What? The actress looks about 25 at most, she'd be great.

So, did other people not turn off / kill the speaker on their modem after the first couple of times they connected? I never heard that noise more than twice during the whole dialup era.

It does sound the same as ZX Spectrum game tape loading noises though, for obvious reasons.

Kerry Bishe is 30, but that would still work.

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