“I/O,” the first episode of “Halt and Catch Fire,” opens with the series’ protagonist, Joe MacMillan, carelessly running over an armadillo with his Porsche. It’s a distinctly impactful visual metaphor for Joe himself (Lee Pace, then years from playing Cléon clones on “Foundation”), a magnetic entrepreneur with a troubled past who aspires to contribute to the burgeoning computer technology revolution when the series begins in 1983… and who cares little for anything (or anyone) he might crush along the way.
Joe, like the series around him, thankfully becomes more nuanced and caring with time. As I have already noted, “Halt and Catch Fire” creators Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers (both executive producers Prime Video’s ‘Paper Girls’ canceled too soon) clearly intended for their AMC show to fill the void left by “Breaking Bad” and soon to be vacated by “Mad Men” when it debuted in 2014. This is also why the first season of the series received a fairly lukewarm reception; At this point, “Halt and Catch Fire” was obsessed with emulating the prestige anti-hero TV series that had preceded it, but without the delicate narrative touch they had at their best. Again, the situation unintentionally paralleled Joe’s own sweaty attempts to leave his emotional baggage behind and reinvent himself as a visionary tech mogul in Season 1.
Between this season’s lukewarm reviews and disappointing viewership (according to Vulture“I/O” was AMC’s least-watched modern drama premiere at the time), the series initially seemed doomed to be sent to the chopping block and fade into obscurity. That’s probably a big part of why “Halt and Catch Fire” never got its due credit as a small powerhouse that could eventually make it, even though it blossomed into the big series it always wanted to be.
Lee Pace thinks Halt and Catch Fire ‘really deserved’ its success
It’s important to note that “Halt and Catch Fire” is about fictional people involved in the real-life personal computer revolution and the birth of the Internet in the 20th century. It also means that Joe and the motley crew of programmers and engineers who are his family are doomed to spend their days chasing Sisyphean dreams, at least professionally. Fortunately, as the series progressed, its creators learned to treat this as a feature and not a bug (pun not intended, but still appreciated). As such, the challenges that come with “failure” and having to start again after ending a relationship and/or bankrupting a business became the central thread and theme of the series.
Of course, this only happened because the creatives behind “Halt and Catch Fire” radically reconfigured the series starting in Season 2, focusing more on its female protagonists and correcting course without ignoring what happened in Season 1. Fortunately, their efforts weren’t in vain. Everything from the show’s writing to its visual symbolism became more sophisticated, while its actors painted their characters in deeper, richer shades. Their reward? “Halt and Catch Fire” miraculously managed to last four seasons and became a critical favorite, even as its audience was still dwindling.
Like Lee Pace said The Hollywood Reporter in 2025, he believes AMC “found a way to make its finances work because they really believed in the show.” He went on to say that the series “really earned” its stripes, later noting: “We had to grow into the DNA of this evolving story, and it really continued to evolve until the very last episode.”
He is absolutely right. See for yourself by streaming “Halt and Catch Fire” on AMC+.
