‘Halt and Catch Fire’ Goes to 1980s Silicon Valley For Season 3

Halt and Catch Fire, AMC’s series about the rise of the tech industry in the 1980s, is rebooting once again. After the second season shifted focus to the show’s female characters, creators and executive producers Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers have moved the action from Texas to Silicon Valley.

“The pull of the valley is strong,” says Rogers, who also notes the season begins in 1986. “For each of our characters, it represents something—California is this heaven, this place where everything will be better, will be different.”

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Donna and Gordon Clark (Kerry Bishé and Scoot McNairy) certainly hope so. The husband-and-wife team have moved across the country to try to save their rocky marriage. At the same time, Donna and renegade programmer Cameron (Mackenzie Davis) are betting the new setting will take their fledgling online gaming company to the next level.

And yes, as shown in the closing moments of last year’s finale, mercurial tech visionary Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace) has relocated to the Bay Area too. “We’ll see a new iteration of Joe,” Cantwell hints. “All the characters have the stakes upped on their potential success. [But] there’s a tremendous anxiety that comes with joining the big leagues.”

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Cantwell and Rogers are also joining the big leagues, as they take over showrunning duties from Jonathan Lisco, who departed to oversee TNT’s Animal Kingdom. But they’re not feeling too much anxiety over the promotion. “We were thrilled to take the reins,” Rogers says. “We went into it feeling [any negativity] would only be on us if the season was in any way not bold.” Spoken like a true tech innovator.

Halt and Catch Fire, Season Premiere, Tuesday, August 23, 9/8c, AMC.