Bosworth aside, this is a show about a mostly really annoying bunch of people. It's well shot and directed, occasionally very well, and for the most part well acted (Lee Pace you are as handsome as you are a walking cliché and a caricature of Don Draper) but sadly, apart from the parts that actually somewhat deal with tech, entrepreneurship and the history of computing, it's pretty badly written.
I gave it a "chance", that chance being two whole seasons. I really wanted to quit half way through the first but TV reviewer Andy Greenwald, whose opinion I hold in very high value, kept going on about how the second season is so much better. Well having just finished it, this is one of the few occasions where I disagree with him, and strongly - the second season is even worse than the first. And what's even worse is that I've been with these characters for two whole seasons and I don't care even the slightest bit about any of them. They're all capricious, dishonest and mostly (apart from Donna to some extent) extremely egocentric. None of them ever seem to do anything good for anyone else, or be nice, or have any fun since somewhere back at the beginning of season one, instead they just lie to and hide stuff from each other and then constantly get surprised when it blows up in their face. I spent every episode wanting to slap each of them in the face half a dozen times. Thank god for Bosworth! He doesn't appear nearly enough, but when he does he's the only thing on screen I don't wish I could impale with a voodoo pin.
Again this is nothing against any of the actors (again apart from Lee Pace, it's definitely against him). They're all (Lee Pace aside) doing fine jobs with what they're been given, but unfortunately for them what they're given is mostly soap opera-level silliness with a bit of insightful tech talk to fill in the gaps. Which is a shame, because this could've been a really fascinating show about the history of digital technology and how it shaped our world, and instead that's a side-note in a story about a bunch of unlikable people constantly annoying each other, themselves and everyone else.
I gave it a "chance", that chance being two whole seasons. I really wanted to quit half way through the first but TV reviewer Andy Greenwald, whose opinion I hold in very high value, kept going on about how the second season is so much better. Well having just finished it, this is one of the few occasions where I disagree with him, and strongly - the second season is even worse than the first. And what's even worse is that I've been with these characters for two whole seasons and I don't care even the slightest bit about any of them. They're all capricious, dishonest and mostly (apart from Donna to some extent) extremely egocentric. None of them ever seem to do anything good for anyone else, or be nice, or have any fun since somewhere back at the beginning of season one, instead they just lie to and hide stuff from each other and then constantly get surprised when it blows up in their face. I spent every episode wanting to slap each of them in the face half a dozen times. Thank god for Bosworth! He doesn't appear nearly enough, but when he does he's the only thing on screen I don't wish I could impale with a voodoo pin.
Again this is nothing against any of the actors (again apart from Lee Pace, it's definitely against him). They're all (Lee Pace aside) doing fine jobs with what they're been given, but unfortunately for them what they're given is mostly soap opera-level silliness with a bit of insightful tech talk to fill in the gaps. Which is a shame, because this could've been a really fascinating show about the history of digital technology and how it shaped our world, and instead that's a side-note in a story about a bunch of unlikable people constantly annoying each other, themselves and everyone else.