Technology has always lurked in the background of television.
Decades ago (read: I’m old), I was watching General Hospital with my sister Lisa (read: she controlled the remote) when the soap opera’s “detectives” on the show tried to crack a case using a Commodore 64. I cried foul, and my lifelong obsession with tech on TV had officially begun.
Let’s take a look at the greatest tech-related TV shows of all time across drama, comedy, sci fi, and the simply downright weird. (We love us some weird here at Pop Thruster.)
The GOAT: Halt and Catch Fire
This is the one. No TV show has captured the excitement, obsession, drama, joy, and turmoil of working in technology as this one did, and the even more exciting bit is that it did it by starting the show in the suburban wilds of 1980s Texas before later moving the action to the west coast and the dawn of the modern Internet age in the ‘90s.
If you’re down for a drama with a dynamite cast (Lee Pace, Scoot McNairy, Kerry Bishé, and Mackenzie Davis give career-best performances) that is interested in the messy and sometimes brutal art of innovation, this one is for you.
Also: the much maligned first season is much, much better than its given credit for by way of the chattering class.
Curious where Halt and Catch Fire ranks on Pop Thruster’s Best 100 TV Shows Ever? I know you are…
The Tech Prestige Hall of Famer: Black Mirror
What if Twilight Zone but every nightmare involves Wi-Fi?
That doesn’t quite capture this sprawling, sometimes uneven but typically mesmerizing anthology show, but it’s close enough to hang seven seasons and counting of prestige television watching on.
I mean that “White Christmas” episode with Jon Hamm alone… but that means we also need to mention “San Junipero” and its bittersweet VR heaven, “Nosedive” turning Instagram clout into social credit horror… and, well, so many more.
Our Limited Series Award Goes To: Devs
Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation) decided to build one perfect little tech parable and then walk away. The result: Devs, a visually stunning, metaphysical, quantum-computing mind warp. Nick Offerman (yes, Ron Swanson) plays a haunted tech mogul with a beard big enough to house Apple’s west coast HQ. It’s only one season, but it feels eternal.
Almost how the best kind of technology sometimes feels like magic.
In the Comedy Department: Silicon Valley
Come on, you didn’t think I would skip SV, right?
Mike Judge took his Office Space DNA and updated it for the age of apps, venture capitalists, and TED-talk blowhards. Silicon Valley captures the ridiculous highs and crushing (ridiculous) lows of startup life, from overhyped launches to lawsuits about nothing. The early seasons are pitch-perfect – capped by the immortal “dick-joke math” scene that belongs in a museum of comedy.
The Grab Bag Category: Mr. Robot, Westworld, Upload
Or: the ones people yell at you if you don’t mention.
Full disclosure: I enjoyed Mr. Robot’s ambitious and stylish tech nihilism early on, and then it trailed off for me. Maybe I’m not a big Puzzle Box show guy (also see: Severance), and maybe I need to revisit this one at some point as I know that many revere it.
Upload, which takes a satirical swing at digital afterlives, is really fun in its first season but sadly lost its way after that. Westworld was… less fun in its first season – though intriguing in its meditation on AI and free will – and then really hit a wall in S2 (though some will contend that you need to stick around to get to the later Aaron Paul-era stuff).
The “Are We Sure They’re Actually Tech Shows?” Award Goes To: Succession, Industry
These aren’t “tech shows” in the strictest sense, but let’s try on the suit to see if it fits.
Succession brings in billionaire tech bros – Adrian Brody and Alexander Skarsgård are standouts here – and focuses on Swedish tech company GoJo potentially merging with or acquiring Waystar Royco in its latter seasons. And Industry is cutthroat hedge funders and fintech pushed to maximum (drug fueled) speed in London.
Should we count ‘em? We’re gonna go ahead and say sure.
More Comedy That I Actually Totally Lived Out in Real Life Really: The IT Crowd
If you’ve ever worked a help desk, you know the drill: “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” The IT Crowd turned that into a sitcom classic, complete with basement offices, socially awkward bosses, and jokes that hold up shockingly well.
Personal note: I once actually had that very job. In England. I was terrible at it. I was the Yank who “extra broke” printers as a room full of white collar Brits looked on with a mixture of disdain and delight.
The IT Crowd nails the mix of boredom and absurdity at the other end of The Office.
And More Tech TV That I Actually Totally Lived Out in Real Life: Uh… Literally TechTV
A little personal history: once upon a time, I worked on a live tech news show called TechTV, producing that live “news ticker” that you see at the bottom of the TV screen on those kinds of news shows. I worked the overnight “zombie” shift to prep for two hours live on air that began at 6 a.m. west coast time.
I didn’t enjoy it much and never quite got used to the schedule. But, bonus: I’d pass people waiting to get into The EndUp in San Francisco at 2 a.m. on my way into work.
If you know, you know.