| Max Headroom | |
|---|---|
Max Headroom doing a promotion for Cinemax |
|
| Genre | Science fiction Drama |
| Created by | Annabel Jankel Rocky Morton George Stone |
| Starring | See Cast |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 14 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Peter Wagg |
| Producer(s) | Brian E. Frankish Peter Wagg |
| Camera setup | Single-camera |
| Running time | 45–48 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Chrysalis/Lakeside Lorimar Productions |
| Distributor | Warner Bros. Television |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Cinemax ABC |
| Original run | March 31, 1987 – May 5, 1988 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future |
Max Headroom is a British-produced American science fiction television series by Chrysalis/Lakeside Productions that aired in the United States on ABC from March 1987 to May 1988. The series was based on the Channel 4 British TV pilot Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future. The series is often mistaken as an American-produced show due to the setting and its use of an almost entirely US cast along with being broadcast in the USA on the ABC network. Cinemax aired the UK pilot followed by a six-week run of highlights from The Max Headroom Show, a music video show where Headroom appears between music videos. ABC took an interest in the pilot and asked Chrysalis/Lakeside to produce the series for US audiences.
The show went into production in late 1986 and ran for six episodes in the first season with eight being produced in season two.
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In 1987, the story told in 20 Minutes into the Future, a made-for-television movie, formed the basis of a fully-fledged drama television series. The film was re-shot as a pilot program for a new series broadcast by the U.S.-based ABC television network. The pilot featured plot changes and some minor visual touches, but retained the same basic storyline. The only original cast retained for the U.S. version series were Matt Frewer (Max Headroom/Edison Carter) and Amanda Pays (Theora Jones); a third original cast member, W. Morgan Sheppard, joined the series as "Blank Reg" in later episodes. Among the non-original cast, Jeffrey Tambor co-starred as "Murray", Edison Carter's neurotic producer.
The series is set in a futuristic dystopia ruled by an oligarchy of television networks. Even the government functions primarily as a puppet state of the network executives, serving mainly to pass laws — such as banning off switches on televisions — that protect and consolidate the networks' power. Television technology has advanced to the point that viewers' physical movements and thoughts can be monitored through their television sets; however, almost all non-television technology has been discontinued or destroyed. The only real check on the power of the networks is Edison Carter, a crusading investigative journalist who regularly exposes the unethical practices of his own employer, and the team of allies both inside and outside the system who assist him in getting his reports to air and protecting him from the forces that wish to silence or kill him.
The series began as a mid-season replacement in spring of 1987, and did well enough to be renewed for the fall television season, but the viewer ratings could not be sustained, due perhaps to direct competition with CBS's Top 20 hit Dallas and NBC's Top 30 hit Miami Vice. Max Headroom was canceled part-way into its second season; leftover episodes aired in spring 1988. Plans for a cinema version titled Max Headroom for President were mentioned in the media but the film was never produced.
Comico comics also had plans to publish a graphic novel based on the story but never fulfilled them. A few posters were produced for comic shops, with a picture of Max Headroom saying comics will never be the same again.
Edison Carter (Matt Frewer) was a hard-hitting reporter for Network 23, who sometimes uncovered things that his superiors in the network would have preferred to keep private. Eventually, one of these instances required him to flee his workspace, upon which he was injured in a motorcycle accident in a parking lot. Bryce Lynch downloaded a copy of his mind into a computer, giving birth to the character Max Headroom, as the last words seen by Edison Carter before impact were "Max Headroom," specifying vehicle clearance height in the parking lot.
The series depicted very little of the past described by Edison, though he did meet a female priest that he once dated when his reporting put him at odds with the Vu Age Church that she now headed.
Edison cares about his co-workers, especially Theora Jones and Bryce Lynch.
According to a personal statistics file displayed on a computer screen in the series, Edison is 6'2" tall and weighs 180 pounds.
Theora Jones was played by Amanda Pays and first appeared in the British-made television pilot film for the series. Along with Matt Frewer and W. Morgan Sheppard, Pays was one of only three cast members to also appear in the American-made series that followed.
Theora was Network 23's star controller and, working with the network's star reporter, Edison Carter, she often helped save the day for everyone. She was also the pseudo-love-interest of Edison Carter, but that subplot was not explored fully on the show before it was cancelled.
Network 23's personnel files list her father as unknown, her mother as deceased, and her brother as Shawn Jones; Shawn is the focus on the second episode broadcast, "Rakers".
Bryce Lynch (Chris Young), a child prodigy and computer hacker, is Network 23's one-man technology research department.
His birthdate is shown on-screen to be October 7, 1988. In the show, Bryce appears to be 16 or 17 years old. So it can be assumed that the characters are living in the timeframe of 2004–2005.
In the stereotypical hacker ethos, Bryce has few principles and fewer loyalties. He seems to accept any task, even morally questionable ones, as long as he is allowed to have the freedom to play with technology however he sees fit. This in turn makes him a greater asset to the technological needs and demands of the network (and the whims of its executives and stars). However, he also generally does not hurt or infringe on others, making him an uncannily neutral character in the Max Headroom universe.
In the pilot episode of the series, Bryce is enlisted by evil network CEO Ned Grossberg (Charles Rocket, another non-original cast member) to investigate the mental patterns of unconscious reporter Edison Carter, to determine whether or not Carter has discovered the secrets of the "Blipverts" scandal. Bryce downloads the contents of Carter's memory into the Network 23 computer system, and manages to boot them as a computer program. The resulting personality, an unhinged and unrepressed version of Carter's personality, is dubbed "Max Headroom" after his first words (the last words seen by Carter before being knocked unconscious by a parking-garage security gate). Ironically, it had been Bryce, following orders from Grossberg, who fought a hacking battle of sorts (a la the opening scene to Hackers) with Theora Jones that led to Edison hitting his head on a traffic barrier and falling unconscious.
After the first episode, Bryce is generally recruited by Carter and his controller Theora Jones to provide technical aid to their investigative reporting efforts.
Bryce is only seen outside of his lab in five episodes:
Blank Reg was played by W. Morgan Sheppard, one of only three cast members to also appear in the American-made series that followed.
Reg is a "blank", a person not indexed in the government's database. He broadcasts the underground Big Time Television Network from his bus. He is a good friend of Edison Carter, and saves him on more than one occasion. With cohort Dominique, he operates and is the onscreen voice of Big Time television, "All day every day, making tomorrow seem like yesterday."
He dresses in a punk style and has a Mohawk haircut. His personality could be considered energetic.
Ned Grossberg is a recurring villain on the series, played by Charles Rocket.
In the UK telefilm Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future upon which the American series was based, the character was called Grosman and was played by Nickolas Grace. Rocket portrayed Grossberg as an American yuppie with a characteristic facial (and neck-stretching) twitch.
In the pilot episode, Grossberg is the chairman of Network 23, a major city television station with the highest rated investigative news show in town, hosted by Edison Carter. In the Max Headroom world, real-time ratings equal advertising dollars, and advertisements have replaced stocks as the measure of corporate worth.
Grossberg, with his secret prodigy Bryce Lynch, develops a rapid-speed advertising delivery medium known as Blipverts, which condenses a full advertisement into a few seconds. But when Carter discovers that Blipverts are killing people, Grossberg orders Lynch to prevent Carter from getting out of the building. Knocked unconscious, Carter's memories are extracted into a computer by Lynch in order to determine whether Carter uncovered Grossberg's knowledge of the danger of Blipverts. The resulting computer file of the memory-extraction process becomes Max Headroom, making Grossberg directly responsible for the creation of the character.
In the end, Grossberg is publicly exposed as responsible for the Blipverts scandal, and is removed as chairman of Network 23.
A few episodes later, in "Grossberg's Return", Grossberg reappears as a board member of Network 66. Again, he invents a dubious advertising medium and convinces the chairman of the network to adopt it. When the advertising method is shown to be a complete fraud, the resulting public reaction against the network leads to the chairman being removed, and Grossberg manages to assume the chairmanship.
| № | Title | Original air-date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Blipverts" | 31 March 1987 |
| Investigative TV news reporter Edison Carter uncovers the disturbing secret of a new TV technology in use by his own employers, Network 23, called "Blipverts", high-intensity commercials with the ability to overload people's nervous system, causing them to explode. | ||
| 2 | "Rakers" | 7 April 1987 |
| When Theora begins ducking out of work for mysterious reasons, Carter soon discovers that she has been trying to find her missing brother, who has become involved in "raking", a dangerous new underground sport that combines motorized skateboarding with gladiatorial combat. | ||
| 3 | "Body Banks" | 14 April 1987 |
| After a woman is kidnapped as an involuntary organ donor for a transplant operation, the woman's boyfriend goes to Carter for help tracking her down. Meanwhile, Max demands to know some details about some fuzzy parts of his (and hence Carter's) memory. | ||
| 4 | "Security Systems" | 21 April 1987 |
| Carter attempts to uncover the identity of the unknown buyer attempting to acquire Security Systems, the biggest security company in the world, but soon finds himself on the run from the police when his identity profile is erased from the government databanks. | ||
| 5 | "War" | 28 April 1987 |
| A terrorist group called the White Brigade claims responsibility for a series of live, televised bombings, with the aid of one of Network 23's competitors, BreakThru TV. Carter and company investigate, and soon uncover the truth: the terrorists are working with a sleazy programming package distributor, who sells exclusive rights to coverage of their attacks, to finance their activities. | ||
| 6 | "The Blanks" | 5 May 1987 |
| As the city government cracks down on the Blanks, people who have removed their identities from the central databanks, a militant Blank named Bruno threatens to use a powerful virus program to wipe out the city's entire computer network and everything connected to it, including Max. | ||
| № | Title | Original air-date |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | "Academy" | 18 September 1987 |
| Blank Reg is arrested for "zipping" (hijacking) Network 23's satellite feeds, and is put on trial on a courtroom game show. Meanwhile, Edison and Theora learn the truth from Bryce: the zipping attacks are really being carried out by a group of students from a private academy for gifted children, the Academy of Computer Sciences, from which Bryce graduated. | ||
| 8 | "Deities" | 25 September 1987 |
| The leader of the View-Age church, who happens to be Carter's ex-girlfriend, kidnaps Max from Network 23 and threatens to erase him to prevent Carter from running a story exposing the church's claim of saving its parishioners' minds as AI constructs as false. | ||
| 9 | "Grossberg's Return" | 2 October 1987 |
| While working on a story related to the upcoming gubernatorial election, Carter learns that Ned Grossberg, Network 23's former CEO, has taken over 23's chief competitor, Network 66, and is planning to rig the election to get 66's candidate into office. | ||
| 10 | "Dream Thieves" | 9 October 1987 |
| In an attempt to get an edge over the major networks, a subscription cable channel turns to airing recorded dream sequences. When Carter begins researching a story on dream recording, he learns that the process can have fatal side effects for the donors. | ||
| 11 | "Whackets" "The Addiction Game" |
16 October 1987 |
| After witnessing survivors of a building collapse running into the wreckage to rescue their TV sets, all of which are tuned to the same game show, "Whackets", Carter investigates and learns that the show hooks its viewers, including Max, with an addictive subliminal signal. Guest Star: Bill Maher | ||
| 12 | "Neurostim" | 28 April 1988 |
| Zik-Zak's new promotional giveaway, the Neurostim bracelet, implants memories (and overwhelming urges to buy Zik-Zak products) directly into people's minds. When Carter gets too close to the truth behind the new promotion while researching his latest story, the promotion's developers plan to throw him off the trail by giving him a special, highly addictive Neurostim bracelet. | ||
| 13 | "Lessons" | 5 May 1988 |
| Carter discovers that Network 23's automated censor system is sending the police to arrest Blanks who are pirating pay-per-view educational programs, the only source of education for homeless children. | ||
| 14 | "Baby Grobags" | Originally unaired in the U.S. |
| While researching a story on genetically engineered "designer babies", Carter discovers that babies with exceptionally high IQs are being stolen from their parents just before being "born" to be used for a new TV show on Network 66. | ||
Max Headroom was the first cyberpunk series to run in the United States on one of the main broadcast networks in prime time, although it was not tagged with that label until some time after its cancellation. Like other science fiction, the series introduced the general public to new ideas in the form of cyberpunk themes and social issues. The series portrayed the Blanks, a counter-culture group of people who lived without any official numbers or documentation for the sake of privacy. Various episodes delved into issues like literacy and the lack thereof in a TV-dominated culture (for example, in the episode "Body Banks", Blank Reg says: "It's a book. It's a non-volatile storage medium. It's very rare. You should 'ave one." This statement also anticipates the mid-2000s controversy over the replacement of print by online and e-book sources.)
Of Max Headroom himself, actor Matt Frewer told Rolling Stone Magazine that "The cool thing about playing Max is that you can say virtually anything because theoretically the guy's not real, right? Can't sue a computer!"[1]
The Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion incident involved someone dressed as Max Headroom interrupting the signals of Chicago television stations WGN and WTTW.[2][3] The person or persons responsible were never identified.
In the late 1990s, U.S. cable TV channels Bravo and the Sci-Fi Channel re-ran the series. Reruns also briefly appeared on TechTV in 2001.
Max Headroom has inspired many imitations and spoofs. In 1980s, Garry Trudeau created the character Ron Headrest for his political comic strip Doonesbury. The character combined the concepts of Max Headroom and then US President Ronald Reagan. Back to the Future Part II also featured a Max Headroom inspired Reagan, as well as computer generated versions of Michael Jackson and the Ayatollah Khomeini as waiters at the fictitious Cafe '80s. There is an homage to Max Headroom in the 1997 film Batman & Robin when Barbara encounters her uncle Alfred Pennyworth in the batcave. He has programmed his brain algorithms into the batcomputer and created a virtual simulation. He appears and speaks (stutteringly) like Max Headroom.
Nickelodeon's ME:TV made a "You're watching ME:TV" clip with Ryan Knowles impersonating Max Headroom on the webwall. In the clip, Ryan's hair was combed back like Max's, and he stutters occasionally and the background panned vertically with purple and blue neon stripes. In episode 7, "John Quixote", of Farscape's season 4, John Crichton enters virtual reality where he encounters a Max Headroom-like version of himself.
There is also a song by Punk Rock Band Sum 41 called "Second Chance for Max Headroom"
The original British version of the movie was released to the Japanese DVD rental market on September 2, 2005.[4]
Shout! Factory released Max Headroom: The Complete Series on DVD in the United States and Canada on August 10, 2010.[5] The set includes a roundtable discussion with most of the major cast members (other than Matt Frewer), and interviews with the writers and producers.