The ‘Halt and Catch Fire’ Showrunners on ‘Redefining the Story of Losers’

Author: JENNIFER VINEYARD / Source: New York Times

Mackenzie Davis, center, as Cameron Howe in “Halt and Catch Fire.”

“Halt and Catch Fire” had the misfortune of falling into a growing category: great TV shows that few people watch. Or at least watch live. Ratings for the series didn’t improve much after its first season, even when the show’s quality did.

Instead of reverse engineering another “Mad Men” or “Breaking Bad” for AMC — something early reviews accused its showrunners of doing — creators Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers (“the Chrises”) scrapped some of their conceptions of what “Halt” was about and found their own voice. Later seasons focused on the dynamic energy of people trying to innovate together in the dawn of the modern tech world, and the makeshift family that would result.

After four seasons, the series ended Saturday night. In advance of that, the showrunners got on the phone to talk to us about the road to the series finale. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Of all the ideas that you pitched in the beginning, which ones survived to the very end?

CHRISTOPHER CANTWELL None? [Laughs] I would say, yes, the five characters are still there. On a high level, we always wanted to see Cameron grow up in the show. I think early on, in the pilot, when we see that Donna is an engineer, we wanted to see some sort of rise to power for her. I guess we always knew at some level that Joe would become something very different than what he thought he wanted to be. When you pitch a show, the network asks, “How many seasons do you see here?

” and you go, “Oh, at least five!” And you really have to say that with a lot of confidence and bluster. You pitch what it could be, which is really just proof of concept, to show the network you can think long term. And what ended up on screen was largely a product of listening to the show itself, discovering new things in the room and not being so married to the concrete vision we had at the very beginning of the process.

CHRISTOPHER C. ROGERS There’s the story you set out to tell, and the story you end up telling — the story you look back and see that you’ve told. The first three seasons are about trying to guess the future, and the fourth season is about living in the future that they created. I think the “rise of Mutiny” story line was us finding our voice. There was something about the neon, snarky, punky type thing that came up between Cameron and Donna that when we saw it, we knew. Women have played a huge role in the rise of tech and were written out of it by advertising. We tried to help right that in some way.

Did you feel that people were expecting “Halt” to be “Mad Men” with computers? It seemed to be a comparison that was imposed upon you.

CANTWELL God bless you. [Laughs] I really feel like we got cudgeled at the beginning of the series by some unfair comparisons. I don’t think it’s the cultural zeitgeist’s fault, because we actually premiered behind “Mad Men,” so when you had the one that was the cultural gold standard followed by the new kid on the block going, “Hey! We also have a tall man who’s handsome!” there are easy parallels to draw there.

Chris and I came up in an age where those male antihero shows were very good, very celebrated. That was a storytelling structure that was worthy of being investigated. I think the best shows crack that wide open and mine them for all they’re worth. But we entered with kind of a Trojan horse. We were looking to challenge that idea. It took us a bit to crack open Joe and figure out who he was. And to be honest, we were doing some of that even as we were a few episodes into the first season. I think we did find a fascinating, difficult, duplicitous, and yet very human guy who is all his own and not a carbon copy.