Meet 'Halt and Catch Fire's Computer Nerds

On Tuesday last week, AMC released a new featurette for their upcoming drama, Halt and Catch Fire , and I have to say, it looks pretty fantastic. Initially, I was a little skeptical about Halt and Catch Fire. “A drama series about computer engineers in the 1980s?” I thought. “How exciting could that be?” Based on what we’ve seen so far, it actually looks like it’s going to be very exciting.

During this new three-minute-long sneak peak, Halt and Catch Fire’s co-executive producer Christopher C. Rogers says that it’s “a story about speed, greed, and shady deals.” Oooh! Actress Mackenzie Davis takes it one step further and calls the show “a sex-charged spy thriller.” Whoa! Okay, but what’s the show actually about?

Executive producer Melissa Bernstein tells us that Halt and Catch Fire focuses on “three outsiders who are trying to find their way into the middle of something that could change the world” — they’re attempting to take on tech giant IBM during the personal computing boom of the 1980s. Three very different people forced to work together toward a common goal? There’s bound to be fireworks!

Halt and Catch Fire takes place in Dallas, Texas in 1983 in what is often referred to as the “silicon prairie.” The show’s title is taken from an “early computer command that sent a machine into a race condition, forcing all instructions to compete for superiority at once. Control of the computer could not be regained.” Make sense? Kind of sounds like a metaphor for the relationships between the show’s main characters, doesn’t it? Speaking of which, let’s meet Halt and Catch Fire’s “rag tag team”:

Joe MacMillan (played by Lee Pace)

Described by the show’s producers as a “visionary,” Joe is a businessman who wants to “build a machine that nobody else has the balls to build.” But he has “a real blind spot when it comes to himself.”

Gordon Clark (played by Scoot McNairy)

Gordon is a super-talented computer engineer who’s been "beaten down" by his past failures. Joe is very supportive of Gordon at first, but does he really have Gordon’s best interests in mind? Or is he just doing what he has to do in order to realize his dream?

Cameron Howe (played by Mackenzie Davis)

Davis says that student Cameron has “a lot of caged animal in her.” As soon as Joe meets Cameron, he can tell that she’s “something special.” I have a feeling that Cameron and Joe’s sexual relationship will complicate their professional one quite a bit!

Halt and Catch Fire premieres on Sunday, June 1 on AMC. Will you be tuning in?

Images: AMC; YouTube