S01.E04: Close to the Metal

[Stinger97]

 

As Cameron nears completion of the BIOS, a crisis threatens the project's future and requires all hands on deck to save the machine.

 

[Armchair Critic]

My favorite so far is Donna. Joe is pretty unlikeable, if we are supposed to be rooting for him they are making it hard. Did the Jean Smart character set him up with the cops or were they just being dicks (was it the out of state license plate)?

 

I assume Cameron didn't do anything to Gordon's house.

 

 

 

 

[dubbel zout]

Could Donna be more awesome? Her takedown of Cameron, who richly deserved every word of it, was magic. I also loved Donna schooling the other engineers and Gordon getting totally turned on by it. 

 

Cameron, ugh. They're working way too hard to make her edgy, rebellious, and troubled.

 

I have mixed feelings on the cops beating up Joe. On the one hand, rogue cops and police brutality are never good. On the other, Joe needed to be taken down a peg or five.

[HunterHunted]

Cameron and Joe both needed to be taken down a peg. They are both assholes who are enamored with their own genius. I'm glad Donna was the one to call and discover their bullshit. Donna 4 lyf!

[Peace 47]

Did the Jean Smart character set him up with the cops or were they just being dicks (was it the out of state license plate)?

I think John Bosworth is the one who set Joe up with the cops. His obvious chumminess with the officers at the station was meant to tip us off that he could call in favors with them. That killed all affection that I had for John. What a pig. Joe is a sociopath, and I hate him, too, but no more team John for me. (I actually thought at the beginning of the episode that they were definitively signaling Joe as the villain, with the fire from the burning code illuminating him in a sinister manner like the devil.)

Donna is so, so wonderful and does not deserve to be saddled with her husband, sadly. Her comment about Gordon not knowing the kids' doctor's name indicates that she has had to be doing all the heavy parental lifting for a very long time, not just as a result of the Cardiff upheaval. And although I thought Gordon was somewhat appreciative of her contribution to saving the project, he really only seems repentant or appreciative when she's doing something that immediately and directly benefits his career. I wish Donna and Cameron could go start their own company together and ditch the men keeping them down.

I have to say that this episode did a much better job of ramping up the interpersonal exchanges among the cast.

Edited June 23, 2014 by Peace 47

[NorthstarATL]

I had no clue in the pilot episode that Donna would be the best character out of the lot, but she continues to be the most rootable. The rest annoy the heck out of me. Especially Cameron and her flamethrower demonstration with the kids! Grow the F up.

[Peace 47]

The rest annoy the heck out of me. Especially Cameron and her flamethrower demonstration with the kids! Grow the F up.

The one thing that I will say for Cameron is that she seemed to have learned her lesson where Donna was concerned. What I mean is that Cameron seemed to be responsive to being treated with some basic human dignity. Gordon has consistently treated her like the trash he called her (and he nearly physically assaulted her), and Joe just spent the day psychologically torturing her (even if that was not his primary objective). If Donna had been her boss all along, Cameron might have been a little bit more ... tolerable (?). I liked that she was humble and appreciative by the end of the episode.

Edited June 23, 2014 by Peace 47

[SonofaBiscuit]

I think that I found this episode to be the most interesting so far, and that's mainly because of Donna.  I would like Donna to have a bigger role on Gordon's project but I'm conflicted.  She's easily the smartest one in the room and her ability to read Cameron so well in the short amount of time that she's known her was awesome, but I don't want Donna tied to these fucking morons.  Loved her telling Gordon, "I make your world possible!"   So true, so true. 

 

Cameron has the emotional maturity of an eight year old and Joe is a manipulative sociopath.  They're like a match made in hell.  Seriously, stealing someone's keys, scaring their kids to death, and driving to their house in their car so that you can vandalize it, all because they called you white trash?  Girls got problems. 

 

Speaking of Cameron, apparently everybody just forgot that someone is supposed to be monitoring her.  The guy who was supposed to be doing it was at least in the episode telling everyone to disperse! when that feared blue IBM binder showed up again.

 

What is this show's obsession with killing animals?  The armadillo, the bird, the horse.  Seriously, I'm worried about the people who are writing these scripts.

[LJonEarth]

Can someone explain why a shaky, small company would want an article publish about what they're planning to build before they build it? Wouldn't that leave room for the competitors, with more resources, to get there first?

 

The only thing that's keeping me from hating Cameron is that I think that she is a complete poser, rather than the product of cliched writing. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself.

[Auntie Anxiety]

Donna is incredibly awesome.  I'd watch a show entirely about her.  It's the first time I think I have ever seen a normal, super smart, computer savvy woman portrayed on a prime time show in a believable way.  She should go to work getting those "lost" emails on Lois Lerner's crashed computer.  It would take her about 10 minutes.

[Yolapukka]

 

What is this show's obsession with killing animals?  The armadillo, the bird, the horse.  Seriously, I'm worried about the people who are writing these scripts.

 

 

I'm trying to remember if anyone pointedly swatted a bothersome fly in episode two because at this point the lack of carnage seems like a lapse. 

[thuganomics85]

Well, then.  Probably my favorite episode so far, and what do you know?  It just happens to be one where Donna is front and center, and owning everyone on screen.  That's no coincidence.  Donna has easily become my favorite character on this show.  Loved her standing up against Joe the Sociopath, not putting up with Gordon's excuses and crap, and not mincing words with Bratty Cameron.  Yep, I'm down with that!  I would watch an entire episode of her telling these fools to stuff it.  I don't care that ended up being all part of Joe's "big plan"; I still love that she was able to save the majority of the code.  Why couldn't she be the lead, again?

 

To be fair though, maybe, just maybe, Cameron might finally start coming around.  Since she didn't vandalize the painting and seem to be respectful to Donna at the end, this might be the beginning of her pulling her head out of her arrogant, "rebel" ass.  I can only hope.  Of course, I wasn't surprised that when Donna took it to her, she just had to run out crying.  She can push Gordon around and roll her eyes at Joe's complaints, but can't handle that kind of heat.  Maybe she'll grow up.

 

All that said, even though I want to see Joe fall, if John did pit the cops against him, that was low of him.  I get the idea of John trying to remind Joe that he has the power here, but there had to be a better way, IMO.  I wouldn't have even been against the cops, but I could have done without the beating.  Had they just arrested him on stupid charges and made him spend a night in jail, and then John smugly bail him out, that would have worked better for me.  The beating just made it slimy.  For shame, John.  Sadly, I think this means that, in the TPTB mind, John is suppose to be the antagonist, and I'm suppose to root for Joe the Sociopath.

 

Enjoyed Michael Esper as the Wall Street journalist.  Especially loved his shit-eating face, when he saw that his boring story could end up being an entertaining train-wreck.

 

Did I mention that Donna is the best?

[Yolapukka]

 

I would watch an entire episode of her telling these fools to stuff it.  I don't care that ended up being all part of Joe's "big plan"

 

I'm starting to think that part of Joe's plan is to poach Donna for the Cardiff team. He went to Cardiff because Gordon was there, he wanted the guy who wrote that article about the future of computing, who is also the guy who designed the Symphonic. He's worked with Gordon long enough to realize that he doesn't have the complete package and that Donna likely provides what is missing. There is no way he doesn't know that Donna was a partner in the Symphonic's development, no matter how much Gordon has tended to downplay her contribution.  I doubt that it would come as a surprise to Joe that she has expertise in data retrieval and that Gordon would likely pull her into the staged situation. His reaction to her presence in the office seemed as fake as his handling of the reporter. 

 

There is no way she'd simply leave Texas Instruments to work at the company that is employing her husband to join him in working crazy hours for questionable long-term security. Her job at TI will keep her kids in peanut-butter if Cardiff goes belly-up. Thanks to the selfishness of Gordon and Joe, her job is now on shaky ground. 

Edited June 23, 2014 by yuggapukka

[hincandenza]

Well, this was better than the previous episodes, and we all seem to agree it's because of the extended presence of Donna.  Why couldn't this show have been about her?  I'd watch that show!  And I don't think Joe cares one whit about her, nor was trying to poach her- he was and remained extremely dismissive of her the entire time, and she sees right through him.  I'm glad from a writing standpoint they had her immediately tell Gordon, because that's what people do; at least in this regard, HCF is not like so many other badly written shows with false drama from a complete lack of communication.  That didn't stop them from writing Gordon as almost unbelievably tone-deaf; you'd expect him to be almost raging, to know they lost a whole day of work to some stupid stunt Joe dreamed up.

 

Despite the (deserved) scolding, I doubt Donna's job is in peril; she'll just refocus and tell Gordon to pick up some damn slack, since as she pointed out her job is the only thing keeping a roof over their heads.  Not like Cardiff can fire him right now just for taking off to pick up the kids or whatever.  Things will smooth over at TI after a while, and she'll be fine.  Lord knows, she's got no patience for Joe's nonsense, and the writing on the wall is that this whole thing will collapse.

 

Which... I don't know if that's the point.  Maybe this show will bait and switch us, and show us the Cardiff team completely failing because of these crippling personality flaws.  The repeated animals dying metaphor- not just dying, but literally being put out of their misery with a quick and painless death- is ham-fisted but is either the writers trying to mislead us, or because they think they're much cleverer than they really are and we'll all rewatch this after it's over and say "Oh, of course!  They hinted at this all along!".  I suspect the latter...

 

Joe remains monstrous and evil, not to the point of complexity/intrigue but way past that into unrelatable sociopath territory.  He has no redeeming elements, no charm, and yet as others have pointed out the incident with the cops/John Bosworth implies we're supposed to see him as a hero, a mad visionary.  I *still* remain confused as to why Joe hasn't been neutered in terms of his effect.  Just bar him from the office, he doesn't actually need to be there for anything.  As much as I am absolutely sickened by police brutality, I can kind of understand Cardiff and Bosworth: they've got a company, and a livelihood, and this psychopath is endangering it at every turn.

 

Then again, Joe- like Cameron- would probably lash out in some other way to destroy the company if he was barred from the building.  Speaking of Cameron, she's another winner, whose only positive asset after 4 episodes is that she didn't spray paint Gordon and Donna's house, after stealing their car, because she got slightly insulted.

[GaT]

There wasn't a second of this episode where I didn't think that Joe did something to create the drama, he is truly one of the most unlikable people I've ever watched on TV. I don't understand what the point of him is, are we ever going to find out?

 

John having him beat up by the cops turned John into another unlikeable character, so lets add that to Gordon, the next door neighbor who got fired, pretty much everyone who works at Cardiff, & of course:

 

Speaking of Cameron, she's another winner, whose only positive asset after 4 episodes is that she didn't spray paint Gordon and Donna's house, after stealing their car, because she got slightly insulted.

As others have already said, Donna is the only likeable person on this show, but while I was grateful that she told Gordon about what Joe did, she's losing points with me because she's not telling that loser to get lost, & she's not looking for a better job, & she's just letting everyone use her & it's getting on my nerves big time.

[AriAu]

she's losing points with me because she's not telling that loser to get lost, & she's not looking for a better job, & she's just letting everyone use her & it's getting on my nerves big time.

 

But she is, at this point, acting like most working spouses back in the '80s. Hopefully she will break out of that mold and maybe some dealings with Cameron will help her so that their "relationship" (if we can call it that) turns into a 2 way street.

Very bummed that the Pie Maker has turned into such an abuse dick. Was he planning on saving the day himself? Was he going to get back at the asshat reporter who told him he was not an engineer so not important? I know he is supposed to be some kind of "man of mystery", but he is just coming off as an unsuccessful Machiavleian jerk

[MrWhyt]

 

Can someone explain why a shaky, small company would want an article publish about what they're planning to build before they build it? Wouldn't that leave room for the competitors, with more resources, to get there first?

IBM has raided their staff and clients, they're on shaky financial ground, and there is no such thing as bad publicity. Joe needed to get people writing/talking about them. I also want to sign up for team Donna.

[annlaw78]

 

I think John Bosworth is the one who set Joe up with the cops. His obvious chumminess with the officers at the station was meant to tip us off that he could call in favors with them. That killed all affection that I had for John. What a pig. Joe is a sociopath, and I hate him, too, but no more team John for me. (I actually thought at the beginning of the episode that they were definitively signaling Joe as the villain, with the fire from the burning code illuminating him in a sinister manner like the devil.)

The interaction with the cops made me wonder if there was a gay-bashing angle to the beat-down (which, as I understand the times -- I was a kid when the show is set -- would not be an unheard of thing).  Perhaps Bosworth followed up his conversation with Cardiff by asking Jean Smart (sorry, Lulu or whatever) what the issue was, and she said Joe had made a pass at her man, or something to that effect. 

 

 

Very bummed that the Pie Maker has turned into such an abuse dick. Was he planning on saving the day himself? Was he going to get back at the asshat reporter who told him he was not an engineer so not important? I know he is supposed to be some kind of "man of mystery", but he is just coming off as an unsuccessful Machiavleian jerk

I'm actually liking Joe as a character more and more.  He's pretty unlikeable, but sometimes it's fun to have unlikeable characters that you still, somehow, want to see succeed (see, also, Hannibal on NBC's eponymous show).  I'm getting a kick out of seeing him do his "sales" thing, and seeing his ease in lying and manipulating -- you rarely run into those types in real life, though they are out there.  And, I also like that he flounders as much as wins and I like that people keep calling him on his limitations with respect to knowing the product he's building.  It's fairly realistic, though -- the skills that make a good exec or sales person are not usually the same skills required to make the widget.  I find his "mystery man" thing more interesting, and tolerable, at this point than Don Draper's.  I think his "big secret" is his daddy is Mr. IBM, or otherwise very highly placed over there, and there is some Oedipal complex stuff working itself out in his wanting to go it on his own and challenge/beat his father on the tech field. 

 

Cameron is overdue for some development.  I got the feeling from the hotel room/street kid scene in the last ep that she's more of a poser in the punk/street culture than an active participant.  She seemed out of place and uncomfortable at the party, and her signs of rebellion are fairly tepid and easily reversible -- bleached short hair and clothes.  Or perhaps the scene showed that she'd outgrown her past over the last few weeks of being committed and invested in something productive.  But I tend to think she's really from a fairly typical middle-class family, who was always bookish in school and uneasy with the stuff required to be "popular" in school, and she's latched on to a punk look and culture.  I think she and Joe may both be hiding more privileged backgrounds than they pretend to come from. 

Edited June 23, 2014 by annlaw78

[dubbel zout]

Her comment about Gordon not knowing the kids' doctor's name indicates that she has had to be doing all the heavy parental lifting for a very long time,

That wasn't at all unusual back in the early '80s. Women entered the work force in large numbers, but they were still expected to take care of the kids and household.

 

Can someone explain why a shaky, small company would want an article publish about what they're planning to build before they build it? Wouldn't that leave room for the competitors, with more resources, to get there first?

 

Joe was more interested in any sort of publicity (though hopeful it wouldn't be absolutely terrible) than he was anything else. And I think the lead time of both the project and when the article would appear would ensure that no one else could get a jump on their own version. Also, it seems everyone thinks the Cardiff folks are nuts for trying to do this anyway, so other companies might not do anything until Cardiff is proven successful.

 

she's not looking for a better job

 

As smart as she is, Donna's job possibilities in IT are pretty limited, I think, which is one reason she needs to keep the one she has at TI.

 

The interaction with the cops made me wonder if there was a gay-bashing angle to the beat-down

I don't think there needs to be. The cops owed John a favor; Joe was driving too fast in a flashy car and is obviously an outsider. That seems enough of a reason to me without adding in gay-bashing.

[annlaw78]

 

I don't think there needs to be. The cops owed John a favor; Joe was driving too fast in a flashy car and is obviously an outsider. That seems enough of a reason to me without adding in gay-bashing.

The cops took an odd sort of glee in beating him up.  Maybe it was just smacking around a yuppie in a Porsche. 

 

Can someone who knows more than I do say whether at this point the graphical user interface has come about?  I think that may be where Cameron is headed, realizing in her conversation with Bosworth re: command-line interface this ep or last (I watched the two together) that to bring computers "to the masses" of non-tech people, they need to have an interface that is simpler and more user-friendly than something like DOS, which totally mystified me as a kid. I had friends who had the whole "run program" thing down, but I was spoiled by Apple/Mac. 

Edited June 23, 2014 by annlaw78

[kieyra]

Donna is incredibly awesome.  I'd watch a show entirely about her.  It's the first time I think I have ever seen a normal, super smart, computer savvy woman portrayed on a prime time show in a believable way.  She should go to work getting those "lost" emails on Lois Lerner's crashed computer.  It would take her about 10 minutes.

Yessss. Broken record from last week, probably, but I'm a female systems admin, and this episode gave me a lot of feels.

1) Donna is who I try to be, professionally, including they way she handled the male engineers.

But

2) I could totally relate to Cameron losing her shit when she thought she lost the code. I actually couldn't watch some of those scenes, too much empathy. The only thing worse than a major technical fuck up like that is being a female who fucked up, since people are already sort of expecting you to be less competent.

I was disappointed when Cameron decided to go be feral some more, but I think we had a genuine moment of character growth when she encountered the crazy guy in the living room and saw what white trash really looked like. I think it may be the beginning of an arc for her becoming an actual human. Maybe.

But man do I loathe Joe. I don't think this level of hatred for the lead can be a good thing.

Somewhat more invested in the show overall now.

[qtpye]

That is what I want to know...what made her stop vandalizing the house. Was it seeing the neighbor made her realize that instead of being kick ass and rebellious, that she was just  being pathetic and sad?  Did her heart grow 3 sized in that scene?  Did the neighbor see the car pull up and came in with the intention of killing Gordon or Donna?

 

The show live and dies on how intriguing we find the mystery of Joe and so far it is falling flat

[bosawks]

Oddly, I'm finding myself becoming increasingly interested in the show while becoming increasingly disinterested in Joe's "mysterious past".

I think it'd be fine if he just ended up being your average manipulative puppeteer bastard of a boss.

[fakeempress]

Obviously, Donna rules. ("Donna" must be a go-to name for awesome characters - see Suits, Doctor Who). I suppose the show is working towards her coming over to Cardiff. It may be too on the nose that she'll lose her job at TI for her lapses - because she's too busy also taking care of the house and the kids (incl. Gordon for the level of maturity he shows). Maybe they'll play the angle that she'll get more and more involved behind the scenes at Cardiff and will decide to make the leap because she sees potential and/or gets excited about the whole project. It was heavily hinted before that it's her male friend/boss who's got the career prospects over at TI. 

 

Everyone else is unrootable or extremely annoying/disappointing. I doubt this is the reaction to the main characters the show wants us to have just 4 episodes in.

 

Joe remains monstrous and evil, not to the point of complexity/intrigue but way past that into unrelatable sociopath territory.  He has no redeeming elements, no charm, and yet as others have pointed out the incident with the cops/John Bosworth implies we're supposed to see him as a hero, a mad visionary.  I *still* remain confused as to why Joe hasn't been neutered in terms of his effect.

 

I agree the beatdown was meant to get us to sympathize with Joe and hate John. I guess we're supposed to see Joe as this hard-driven visionary who is somewhat ruthless but leads the talent to greatness. Um, not so much. So far, Joe is the biggest failure as a character. Half the time he's a cypher (still nothing on why he's so driven to the point of cruelty), the other half he's like a Randian "hero", and neither is acceptable. I didn't expect to say this about Lee Pace either, but he flounders so far. He doesn't have a handle on what he's doing with the character and his acting comes across as very mannered and even posing. Of course he's not helped by the writing so far, but I feel like they intended Joe to have some kind of charismatic mystery aura around him, and Lee is not exactly bringing it.

 

Maybe they'll try to make Joe more human as he "bonds" with the Cardiff people (apart from whatever past mystery he's got to get over) but who knows.

 

 

2) I could totally relate to Cameron losing her shit when she thought she lost the code. I actually couldn't watch some of those scenes, too much empathy. The only thing worse than a major technical fuck up like that is being a female who fucked up, since people are already sort of expecting you to be less competent.

 I'm nowhere near IT but I could totally relate to her going crazy there. Back in college I almost had a heart attack from losing a term paper (stupidly not backed up) to a computer crash just as it was due, and then someone as awesome as Donna recovered it to like 70%. I'm glad that Cameron didn't end up vandalizing the house and hopefully she and Donna can team up against the morons, but part of the whole shebang there was about Cameron the rebel and that's getting old too.

[Jeebus Cripes]

I'm actually liking Joe as a character more and more.  He's pretty unlikeable, but sometimes it's fun to have unlikeable characters that you still, somehow, want to see succeed (see, also, Hannibal on NBC's eponymous show).  I'm getting a kick out of seeing him do his "sales" thing, and seeing his ease in lying and manipulating -- you rarely run into those types in real life, though they are out there.  

 

Sociopaths are well suited for leadership roles, and in that respect I'm kind of enjoying the character for what he is. I have to say that by the time the episode ended, I was asking myself if Donna was the only one with a soul. Lots of foul deeds going on with these people.

 

That is what I want to know...what made her stop vandalizing the house. Was it seeing the neighbor made her realize that instead of being kick ass and rebellious, that she was just  being pathetic and sad?  Did her heart grow 3 sized in that scene?  Did the neighbor see the car pull up and came in with the intention of killing Gordon or Donna?

 

The neighbor with shotgun was disturbing the crap out of me. What's to stop him from pulling that stunt again while Gordon or Donna is home, or god forbid, the kids? Look it, if the neighbor shoots Donna, I'm done.

[Watcher0363]

If you were to read about young Steve Jobs. Joe would seem like an amateur sociopath and asshole. Young Jobs used and abused people, especially the very talanted, on a massive scale.

[kieyra]

If you were to read about young Steve Jobs. Joe would seem like an amateur sociopath and asshole. Young Jobs used and abused people, especially the very talanted, on a massive scale.

Can't disagree, and I've been assuming that's one of the places they're drawing Joe's character from, but I don't know whether they stopped to consider whether the personality archetype would make a good TV show lead. I think maybe less-is-more would have been the approach. Make Gordon the protagonist, and Joe is still an evil madman pulling the strings, but in a more shadowy, off-camera way. With less screaming and destroying of objects, and less abuse of the mostly-feral Cameron.

[Watcher0363]

Can't disagree, and I've been assuming that's one of the places they're drawing Joe's character from, but I don't know whether they stopped to consider whether the personality archetype would make a good TV show lead. I think maybe less-is-more would have been the approach. Make Gordon the protagonist, and Joe is still an evil madman pulling the strings, but in a more shadowy, off-camera way. With less screaming and destroying of objects, and less abuse of the mostly-feral Cameron.

I have only read articles on the rise of Apple, Microsoft and the silicon valley culture. But it seems as if the writers of this show has based a lot of their characters on the early personalities of that time period. Gordon could easily be the Steve Wozniak equivalent on this show. Let's face it Steve Jobs was clearly more visionary than tech savy, not that he did not understand the basic technology, it's that he saw more what the technology could do if properly designed and packaged.

[dubbel zout]

Sociopaths are well suited for leadership roles, and in that respect I'm kind of enjoying the character for what he is.

 

I wish that came across in a different way. There's too much assholishness in Joe for me to enjoy the sociopath part of him. He's no Jim Profit. There was a sociopath.

 

I think maybe less-is-more would have been the approach. Make Gordon the protagonist, and Joe is still an evil madman pulling the strings, but in a more shadowy, off-camera way. With less screaming and destroying of objects, and less abuse of the mostly-feral Cameron.

 

I think this would work better, too. And make Cameron less feral, because I don't think this particular cliché is really working for the story.

[attica]

That wasn't at all unusual back in the early '80s.

 

Not for nothing, it's not all that unusual now. Grr.

 

My spidey sense suggests it's not John who arranged the beatdown by cop. I might've believed it a few eps ago, but I get the impression that it's to the point where Joe is now part of John's world. Meaning family bizness gets taken care of inside the family, not via outsiders. John might hate Joe, but he's going to defend him to outsiders -- as he did to the journalist. So he's not going to outsource a beatdown.  His chumminess with the cops is, I think, just a product of good ol' boy culture. It doesn't suggest nefariousness to me. I don't think we've been given enough information about who might want Joe beaten (besides Cam, when she finds out about Joe's disc-wiping shenanigans) yet. 

 

Nice touch on the Etienne Aigner handbag (or facsimile thereof) Donna was sporting. Exactly the right accessory for that time and class of woman.

 

Finally, because it can't be said enough, Donna FTW! [stadium roar]

Edited June 24, 2014 by attica

[scowl]

 

If you were to read about young Steve Jobs. Joe would seem like an amateur sociopath and asshole. Young Jobs used and abused people, especially the very talanted, on a massive scale.

 

He didn't get abusive before Apple became a huge success, his employees were rich and he become obsessively focused on a product. Joe has nothing but a failing company with no product, and a new idea for a product every week. In 1982, engineers would be updating their resumes under Joe's leadership.

 

There's no one to root for. The engineers look like idiots. Management looks like the Third Reich. I did feel sorry for Cameron (head crash and no backups is a nightmare) but I wouldn't have felt bad if she had gotten shot while vandalizing a house over a stupid remark. This is legal in Texas, right?

 

The techno-babble is still jarring to me. We called File Allocation Tables "fats" (we still do). The show is desperate to have remotely authentic technical details but most people would have been confused by "fat" so they had Donna not only say "F.A.T." but later say what it stood for to a bunch of engineers which made it look stupid. She could have said "allocation table" instead but that would have been "less" authentic. 

 

And the "500 millisecond response time" thing? So many holes in that one.

[OakGoblinFly]

I'd watch a show about how awesome Donna is .... the rest of the characters not so much.

 

I might have to stop watching before my Lee Pace love dies.

[Hanahope]

I just love that they are showing Donna as very smart and very capable. There's a female role model.  She's just not two people so its hard to completely take care of the kids (so her husband can work), do all her job duties, and help save her husband's computer company's ass. 

[annlaw78]

 

I just love that they are showing Donna as very smart and very capable. There's a female role model.  She's just not two people so its hard to completely take care of the kids (so her husband can work), do all her job duties, and help save her husband's computer company's ass

It doesn't make a ton of sense why either parent picks the kids up from school (at 3pm), if they both work full-time, but maybe I missed some explanation of why that was necessary.  I think the girls are too young to do the latchkey thing and ride the bus home, but there is such a thing as after-school care that the children can attend, so no one is having to leave work at odd hours.  Maybe they're in some after-school program at the school, I don't know.

[Hanahope]

I thought there was some line about how their regular sitter couldn't do it and her parents were away.  Back in the 80s, I don't recall there being official after-school programs at schools.  I used to just walk/take the bus home starting when I was 10 when both of my parents worked.  I was "different" because almost all of my friends had their mothers at home.  But Donna's/Gordon's girls seem younger.

[katysax]

The technobabble in this episode was a bit much.  I work as a computer forensics examiner, and I have extensive experience with data recovery.  Keep in mind that the tools available at that time were pretty primitive too, and computers were slow.  The part where they rebuilt the drive was pretty ridiculous, not that it can't be done, but it's hard and you need a clean room and it takes  along time - you don't do it with a bunch of people standing around watching out in the open. 

[Watcher0363]

I just love that they are showing Donna as very smart and very capable. There's a female role model.  She's just not two people so its hard to completely take care of the kids (so her husband can work), do all her job duties, and help save her husband's computer company's ass. 

Donna obviously wears Enjoli, and wears it well.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Watcher0363

[dubbel zout]

She is a w-o-m-a-n.

[NutmegsDad]

This was the first episode which I perked up, game a damn about a development, and said out loud, "Well, THAT'S interesting."

 

Joe's been sabotaging the project (and Cardiff) since we first saw him, I was beling led to believe he was an IBM mole destroying the company from within. Joe's literal beatdown (and  I  am speculating that John was behind it) was long overdue and well-deserved. I  am waiting for Donna to come in and supplant Joe as the driving force.

 

If Joe wanted to "teach" Cameron not to be sloppy, here's my slow clap. She still would have gotten out the code. I'm hoping that Donna will be a better role model.

 

Cameron was going to spraypaint the house until Shotgun Guy came in and, she thought, "Now THIS is fucked up!" and backed away from the crazy.

 

Gordon is still a schlub who is just there. At least he's married to Donna.

[Aprilshowers]

As Mr.April pointed out do we really need theCameron and theJoe characters on this show? This episode really drove that point home as the Gordon/Donna company stuff minus Joe was far more compelling and the Cameron stuff is just screaming we are trying too hard with this.

 

This show feels like two shows in one and that is NOT a good thing imo

[dubbel zout]

do we really need theCameron and theJoe characters on this show?

 

Without Joe, the project wouldn't have existed, so I think his place is legit. I think it's clear that Gordon needs to be pushed into doing something. Once he's in, he's in, but the Symphony project gave his self-esteem a beating.

 

I feel like Cameron is the sop to the female audience, so we won't think the show is a total sausagefest.

[Aprilshowers]

 

Without Joe, the project wouldn't have existed, so I think his place is legit.

 

This is true, but damn if his character isn't a total unrootable sob. If they want a Don Draper type give him some root worthy traits please show. 

[scowl]

The technobabble in this episode was a bit much.  I work as a computer forensics examiner, and I have extensive experience with data recovery.  Keep in mind that the tools available at that time were pretty primitive too, and computers were slow.  The part where they rebuilt the drive was pretty ridiculous, not that it can't be done, but it's hard and you need a clean room and it takes  along time - you don't do it with a bunch of people standing around watching out in the open. 

 

If I understood what the writers were trying to make me believe, the plan was to manually turn the platter and read the ones and zeros off of it. We both know that disk controllers won't read data at that speed. And without a cushion of air keeping the head above the platter, they'd be dragging it across the platter and causing even more damage.

 

They might not have needed a clean room. The densities weren't very high back then. The biggest risk was some junk getting between the head and the platter. Compressed air to clean the platter would have been a good idea!

 

This episode is where I think the show decided to completely disconnect itself from the real history of personal computers.

[ganesh]

Dear Show, moar Donna Getting Shit Done, plz.

 

I also loved Donna schooling the other engineers and Gordon getting totally turned on by it.

I also liked that the engineers weren't all throwing their dicks on the table to shoot down what the girl is saying. They seemed all to legitimately be trying to solve the problem while Donna was leading them through the procedure. 

 

I have mixed feelings on the cops beating up Joe. On the one hand, rogue cops and police brutality are never good. On the other, Joe needed to be taken down a peg or five.

I think John Bosworth is the one who set Joe up with the cops. His obvious chumminess with the officers at the station was meant to tip us off that he could call in favors with them.

At the beginning of the show, the Big Boss was pretty clear that John needed to show Joe who was boss at the company. John was staring at Joe through the fire and he wasn't happy. And at the end of the show John clearly knew the cop. I think the simplest answer is the best in this case. 

 

And I don't think Joe cares one whit about her, nor was trying to poach her- he was and remained extremely dismissive of her the entire time, and she sees right through him. 

 

If Joe planned out this scenario this well, he had to have factored Donna into it. Maybe had Gordon not brought her in, he would have suggested her himself. As it was said, Joe knew about Symphonic, so he knows Donna has kung fu. I think it's only a matter of time before she's over there. Or that she's involved somehow in this project. They're already established that she is somewhat invested because she came up with the motherboard idea.

 

I know he is supposed to be some kind of "man of mystery", but he is just coming off as an unsuccessful Machiavleian jerk.

Joe came to the company to start the pc clone. He got Gordon to reverse engineer the BIOS. He called IBM and told them. He had the plan B when the lawyer was in the room with everyone discussing what to do. He had Cameron waiting in the wings when they needed someone 'clean' to write the BIOS. Then he orchestrated a whole plan to get a reporter to write something interesting about what they're doing. I'm not seeing much unsuccessful Machiavellian. He's certainly an asshole.

 

Or perhaps the scene showed that she'd outgrown her past over the last few weeks of being committed and invested in something productive. 

 

This is the hotel scene from last week. That's what I got from it. She was kind of standing there like, 'this is not as fun as I thought it would be. And her mind was on the BIOS anyway/

 

And the "500 millisecond response time" thing? So many holes in that one.

 

I was betting that the technical speak would be kind of glossed over. But, it's not an historical accounting. If it were in my area of expertise, which shows have been, I laugh it off. Because they're never really going to get it right. I honestly don't care. Actually, I do care, but only as far as the broad strokes. They want to make it fast so they can use the 286. Ok. Good enough.

 

Same thing with Donna. Yeah they needed a clean room, etc., but the gist of the problem and solution is good enough. It was more about Donna being able to fix the problem and leading a team to do it. It didn't really matter what it was. It was about Donna being with her peers, contrasted with her idiot boss at TI. It's not necessarily a show about *making* the pc clone per se.

 

I leaning more now that it's more a show about Donna Enjoli and Gordon, and that's fine with me. 

 

 

I thought there was some line about how their regular sitter couldn't do it and her parents were away.

 

Gordon also asked if Donna's mother was available as well. My grandparents would take me too sometimes back then if needed. 

 

This was pretty good all around. The show is improving for me. 

Edited June 26, 2014 by ganesh

[annlaw78]

 

Gordon also asked if Donna's mother was available as well. My grandparents would take me too sometimes back then if needed.

This just hits on one of my person TV-contrived-plotline/conflict-creator pet peeves: the intelligent, overworked, harried couple who doesn't have childcare figured out (Grey's Anatomy is the worst!).  I understand that the usual sitter was sick, and the back-up grandparents were gone.  But you'd think there would be a neighbor/teen/mom-of-a-friend who they could call as another back-up.  This was before the days of telecommuting and working from home, so there's not the same latitude as there may be now with leaving early and logging back in.  Either Donna or Gordon begging off work at 2:15 and spending the rest of the day at home was going to be a problem. 

[dubbel zout]

Gordon also asked if Donna's mother was available as well. My grandparents would take me too sometimes back then if needed.

This just hits on one of my person TV-contrived-plotline/conflict-creator pet peeves: the intelligent, overworked, harried couple who doesn't have childcare figured out (Grey's Anatomy is the worst!).  I understand that the usual sitter was sick, and the back-up grandparents were gone.  But you'd think there would be a neighbor/teen/mom-of-a-friend who they could call as another back-up.

 

Child care isn't always going to work out. I think the point was made too heavily, but they had the logistics decided. Donna reminded him before the day started that he had to pick the girls up, and he said he would. Then his day is the one that has to take precedence, even though her job has been on thin ice recently.

 

I don't want the show to use this card again—I don't want them turning Donna into a martyr—but it didn't bother me here.

[ganesh]

 

I understand that the usual sitter was sick, and the back-up grandparents were gone.  But you'd think there would be a neighbor/teen/mom-of-a-friend who they could call as another back-up.

Maybe they had asked the neighbor in the past to look after the kids. But since Gordon fired him, he felt weird about it too. That's a bit of a wank because clearly TPTBs were using that to get Donna and the kids to the office, but I think it's good enough.

[LittleGreyCells]

 

He

 

's no Jim Profit. There was a sociopath.

 

Are we sure? Have we seen where he sleeps?

Edited June 27, 2014 by LittleGreyCells

[Dowel Jones]

Tip of the hat to the writers for the garage scene with Cameron and the kids:  "You're fun.  You're not trash".  What was that loud noise?  Oh, the anvil.  I laughed out loud at the absolute innocence with which that line was spoken.  Oh, you kids.  And, while Donna may be awesome with an A, remember that she handed over her entire purse to a relative stranger. 

ETA:  Was Silicon Prairie an actual term of that time?

Edited June 27, 2014 by Dowel Jones

[Wax Lion]

 

Are we sure? Have we seen where he sleeps?

 

I'm keeping my fingers crossed he sleeps naked surrounded by electronic gadgets.

 

Thanks for embedding that Enjoli commercial. I remember those ads from when I was a kid but have been trying to remember the product for years.