President Trump.

Hope for the best; prepare for the worst.

The first season was better, just because it was so different.

The second season is still better than most TV – and they get the tech/tech folks mostly right.

And the series leaves a bunch of holes that need to plugged moving forward. Not a complaint, but a reality. Hey, hooks for the next season, and not in a bad way.

(For future ref: Yes, I purchased the DVD; watched same.)

I had a chance to watch this series over the last few weekends.

I’d heard good things about it – better than expected.

The first two seasons took place in 1983-84 in Dallas, just after the launch (in 1981) of the IBM PC. A group of computer geeks – hardware engineers, software coders and other visionaries work to build on the promise of the PC.

The first season was all about the company the main characters worked at attempting to clone the IBM PC, and end up inventing a portable computer, not just a desktop (it had a handle). It was never described as a notebook or laptop – mainly because it weighed 15 lbs and you still slapped it on a desktop to work on the machine.

The second season focused on the online world – pre-internet – with online communities starting to displace online gaming (foreshadows Reddit and such).

Along the way, the show touches on how broadband will change everything, virus-protection software, time-sharing on mainframes and a host of other issues. I’m a tech dork, so it was fun for me, but Romy – while tech savvy, isn’t a geek – liked it, too. Because while the show revolves around tech, it is about the lives of the main actors. And they, as in real life, have moments of greatness and moments of utter WTF.

At the end of season two, everyone moves from Dallas to the San Francisco area – for different reasons – so I’m looking forward to Season Three (which won’t be out until August, boo!!!).

Good acting; MacKensie Davis (software genius) plays the same role – to an n^th degree – that she played in the movie The Martian, where she was a tech geek in Mission Control. Even her hair is the same.

I can’t quite figure out the visionary, Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace). Is he a visionary, or is he just trying to make hay off others’ work? Is he an Ayn Rand superman, who believes so strongly in his own vision that he is willing to (literally!) burn things to the ground to demonstrate that the current path is pointed in the wrong direction? He is very big on the concept of the past and the future, and he has no use for the former, in either technology or his personal life. That is over; look ahead.

And, for the most part, they got the tech right!