Halt and Catch Fire renewed for Season 3
David Farnor | On 13, Oct 2015
Good news, Amazon Prime and computing fans! Halt and Catch Fire has been renewed for a third season.
The AMC period drama, which has never been a huge hit in terms of ratings, has nonetheless won over fans – ourselves included – with its second season reshuffle earning plaudits in the US. The series, which follows the changing culture of Texas’ Silicon Prairie during the personal computing boom in the 1980s, stars Lee Pace as salesman Joe MacMillan, Scott McNairy as engineer Gordon Clark, Kerry Bishé as his smarter-than-him wife Donna and Mackenzie Davis as programming prodigy Cameron.
The show premiered in the UK exclusively on Amazon Prime Instant Video, with episodes arriving 24 hours after their initial broadcast – an arrangement that placed Halt and Catch Fire in the same pen as CBS series Extant. That sci-fi thriller, starring Halle Berry, was cancelled this month, following poor ratings, suggesting that audience figures are more important than international income from streaming rights. AMC, though, has taken the opposite approach: despite the second season finale attracting just 900,000 viewers, the network will bring back the show for a third run.
“We’ve built a business now where we’re able to get to ‘yes’ [on a renewal] without being dependent on big ratings,” AMC and SundanceTV programming chief Joel Stillerman explained to Vulture. Indeed, the show is produced in-house, which helps to keep the maximum amount of revenue possible for AMC, while the network’s other hits, such as The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead, also help to balance the books to support smaller, prestige dramas.
Season 3 of the show will span 10 episodes and will see former showrunner Jonathan Lisco step down to be replaced by co-creators and writers Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers. It is set to premiere in summer 2016.
