‘Halt and Catch Fire’: Sadly, no season 3 renewal news at TCA

It is not often that a show not getting a renewal at a particularly time is newsworthy, but in the case of “Halt and Catch Fire,” AMC missed out on a golden opportunity Friday during their presentation at the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour.

We know that this was a spot in which the network was fine to renew shows. They decided to give “Humans” a little bit of love courtesy of a second season in this spot. Meanwhile, Starz recently renewed “Black Sails,” and MTV used TCA in order to give an official renewal to “Scream” after one was more or less announced at San Diego Comic-Con a little bit earlier in the summer.

So does the lack of a renewal for the Lee Pace series spell doom for the show’s season 3 odds? We’re not going that far right now, but we are clearly worried about it. The ratings for the series are very weak compared to the majority of the other programming on AMC, and the show has yet to garner much in the way of awards-show buzz. Much of the reason for the renewal the first time may have been to see if more people could get hooked on the show, and while it is beloved by its core audience, it is really not getting a whole lot of love anywhere else.

If there is one thing that we would use to keep an element of hope alive, it is that last year, AMC waited until after season 1 aired (possibly for some DVR numbers) before deciding to renew the show. Maybe the same thing will happen here, and we are not going to be doomed to have to witness another Lee Pace show go away after two seasons. We’re still bitter over “Pushing Daisies.”