Jerks!

Now that winter is here, and it's "you're-never-leaving-the-house" weather, I am finding myself taking in episode after episode of shows I've never had much interest in. Why am I doing this? I watched all of the second season of The Crown on New Year's Day, a show I had very little interest in as I half paid attention to the first season. Last night I finished the first season of Halt and Catch Fire. While watching both of these shows I kept thinking to myself, these are all terrible people. I should insert a spoiler alert here if you haven't watched yet. Am I supposed to feel bad for Queen Elizabeth (I did, a little) or her sister, Princess Margaret? Prince Philip? They really want you to feel bad for that guy- they try so hard in those last 2 episodes but no thanks, I don't feel bad for that whiny baby Nazi. The only person I felt legitimately bad for was the Queen's private secretary Michael, because she made him shave his mustache off. Ugh, royalty.

Halt & Catch Fire AMC

Halt and Catch Fire has been on 4 seasons, and if it weren't for Netflix, I might never have heard of it. It was on AMC, known best for Walking Dead, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad, and set in the early 80's boom of the personal computer. The focus is on the 3 main characters trying to be the first to develop a portable PC (super light at 15lbs!). All three of them- a smooth talking salesman with a vision, a crazy eyed genius engineer, and a coding prodigy- are jerks! Every episode I watch I think why are these people such jerks? They're selfish and awful but yet, I keep watching. Why? Because Halt and Catch Fire, like The Crown, is so compelling. Even if the main cast is all a bunch of conniving, selfish, whiny, ridiculous jerks, it's the storyline surrounding them that makes it worth the binge. It's the set design. It's the music. With The Crown, the historical content is what draws me in. Seeing things I have learned about, but fro this other point of view is so watchable. In the case of HaCF, it's the rush of the computer race! Will they figure that code out? Can they get the money together? The best character in season one is actually engineer Gordon's wife Donna. She's not a jerk, and she isn't a stereotype- which this show has plenty of. She's in a way, the heart and conscience of the show. But, now that I've watched the 1st season, I figure I'll binge the rest and find out if the others become more than just jerks. It's not like I'm going anywhere for the rest of the winter.