Not the most discussed cable drama, perhaps, but one I watch out of interest and not out of duty, "Halt and Catch Fire" is back for a third season this week. It's a welcome reminder that you don't need to pour on the sex, violence or sexual violence to make a story compelling. A 1980s tale of the wildcatting days of personal computing and network connectivity, the series set its first two seasons in Texas, surprisingly but not ahistorically. The new year finds the five industrious principals -- computer-savvy couple Gordon and Donna Clark (Scoot McNairy and Kerry Bishé), hotshot coder Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis), hucksterish visionary Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace) and Toby Huss (Artie the World's Strongest Man on "The Adventures of Pete and Pete," I will always mention) as John Broadman, the business end -- relocated to California to muck in alongside the Silicon Valley colonists and venture capitalists. They have had a hand in hardware and in software, video games and chat rooms, and this year, someone might be about to invent online shopping. After two seasons of near-constant professional and personal crises, the characters have moved on beyond the original suggestion of Gordon and Joe as vague stand-ins for Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs.