By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Thursday, October 8, 2015
Miracles never cease! AMC has given a third season to its low-rated but increasingly well-liked historical drama "Halt and Catch Fire," which is shot in metro Atlanta but set in the Dallas tech world in the 1980s.
The show eked out a second-season renewal with modest viewership but a network willing to be patient. The patience paid off from a quality standpoint. Critics generally liked season two as the focus shifted away from Lee Pace and Gordon Clark's characters and more on ladies played by Mackenzie Davis and Kerry Bishe.
A ten-episode third season set to debut in the summer of 2016 will do what "Mad Men" hinted at but ultimately didn't do: go to California.
"We love what the creative team and cast have been able to deliver on 'Halt and Catch Fire' and are particularly grateful to the critics and fans who supported the show throughout the second season and have been pulling for its renewal," said Joel Stillerman, president of original programming and development for AMC and SundanceTV, in a press release. "In a world of TV series filled with scary, mythical creatures like zombies and dragons, we're thrilled to be able to follow these characters to Silicon Valley and finally bring unicorns to television."
Hitfix got him on the phone for a further explanation why AMC renewed it:
I am not a regular viewer of the show so I'm not sure what the "unicorn" reference is but the show's press release included quotes from critics who rooted for its renewal:
"The second season of Halt and Catch Fire, AMC's 1980s-set tech drama, turned out to be terrific, engaging television, taking the show's characters through the earliest days of the online boom and concluding with a finale that leaves all sorts of possibilities open for a third season. It's a great, great season of TV." – Vox.com
"Consider the entirety of Halt and Catch Fire's excellent second season, 10 episodes that were as elegant as they were rewarding. Better, it was a celebration of the good things that can result when television writers care — and care deeply — about the smallest details of their creations." – Grantland.com
"Across the board, Halt's great leap forward makes for a breezier, better show." –
RollingStone.com
"If you weren't an early adopter of this computer-biz drama, don't worry. Season 2 is easy to jump into, and it's excellent." – Time.com
Overnight ratings were about 500,000 this past summer, which after DVR usage and other measures, probably exceeded 1 million. Still, this is about 5 percent of the viewership of AMC's top show "The Walking Dead," also shot in metro Atlanta.
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