‘Halt and Catch Fire’ finale ratings may lower season 2 odds

Unless AMC is feeling particularly generous right now, things may be at a halt soon for the network’s original tech show “Halt and Catch Fire.”

The ratings for the season 1 finale are in, and they don’t give us a whole lot of hope. Instead, only 574,000 viewers (per Deadline) watched the finale for the show on Sunday night. That is the second-worst total viewership of the season, and it proves that there aren’t just new viewers flocking into the show now or those interested in seeing how the story ended.

While the producers are definitely open to telling more stories, to us the only thing that could save the show is a decent performance in DVR viewing. We do feel like competition is one thing that is holding back the show, given that you have such other adult-oriented fare as “The Leftovers,” “The Strain,” and “Masters of Sex” on all at the same time. That’s a lot of holes being filled for intelligent TV watchers, especially when you add in long-running shows like “Falling Skies” or even the reality disappointment “Rising Star.”

One of the most unfortunate things here to us about the show is strictly that it never quite managed to catch fire in the first place. The title is not really a great one, and the subject matter just may not be that mainstream. None of this, though, overtakes the fact that it was a rather fantastic show, and in our mind the best first season of a show since “The Walking Dead” started.

While we’d love to see another season air after some repeats and a strong push on Netflix and other streaming services, right now we’re going to expect the worst, and be pleasantly surprised if a renewal happens.