It's a shame that it is such a niche show in practice. The acting of Lee Pace and Mackenzie Davis in particular are so good across all 4 seasons.
I recommend it at every chance I get, but few people ever watch it. They're more likely to give Silicon Valley a try.
Lee Pace is just bigger than life, and Mackenzie Davis is electric in every scene, but my favourite on the show was Scoot McNairy's character. A very specific type of nerd that's rarely written with such depth and nuance. Although I guess that could be said of all the main (and not so main) characters in the show.
If anyone else loved these actors watching HACF, I would recommend watching The Fall (Pace), Fargo S3 (McNairy) and Station Eleven (Davis).
All four leads are flawless and I can't really think of a single bad performance.
Same. Having experienced the growth of computing in those eras, the show itself had a very well researched yet very nostalgic sense of "oh yes. I'd forgotten about that".
Silicon Valley is also pretty good. I went in expecting not to like it (in a Big Bang Theory "about nerds but not for them" way) but came out loving it. It may read as parody to some but it barely is. It's a comedic but accurate take on west coast tech industry of the 2010s
The best part of Silicon Valley was that it had a very south park quality to it.. in that things that were actually happening at the time were parodied on the show.