One of my favorite TV shows of all time was the early cyberpunk science-fiction series Max Headroom. For those of you with faded memories of the 1980’s, you might recall an iconic image of a computer-generated sunglasses-wearing head, spouting off non-sequiturs and funny observations. That was Max Headroom.
From 1987 to 1988, ABC aired a one-hour drama series in which Max Headroom, along with his human counterpart Edison Carter, fought for truth and accountability in a dystopian future world.
Edison Carter was a crusading investigative journalist who uncovered a very gruesome plot – a television advertising campaign that actually caused viewers to explode. He later discovered that these “blipverts” were manufactured by the primary advertiser for his network, and in trying to recover information that links the corruption all the way up to the head of his network, Carter is chased by thugs intent on silencing him. He speeds away on a motorcycle, and crashes into a guardrail – the last words he sees on the guardrail are the words “Max Headroom 2.3m.”
With their top reporter apparently dead, the network hires one of their top researchers to try to re-create Carter as a video-only avatar, one that would report the news as programmed to him by the network. The researcher creates an avatar, based on Carter’s brain patterns, but the avatar – who calls himself “Max Headroom,” based on the last memories Carter has – goes rogue and exposes the blipvert scandal anyway. Meanwhile, a half-dead Carter is rescued from a body-harvesting center, and he and Max Headroom continue to uncover scandals and atrocities in a world, as denoted by the show writers, as being “20 minutes into the future.”
It was unlike any science fiction program ever seen on television; the show was more of a cross between Blade Runner and Neuromancer; it featured rapid-cut editing and state-of-the-art computer graphics (okay, the graphics were produced on a Commodore Amiga computer, but come on, it’s 1987). The show had decent ratings as a summer replacement series, and was renewed for a second season – but was shoved from its original Tuesday night slot to a Friday evening air date, where it was part of an ABC lineup that included the debut of Full House, a show called I Married Dora, and the Friday night debut of 20/20. Yeah, that’s a recipe for ratings success. What was on the other channels at that time? Friday nights at 9pm, NBC aired Miami Vice, while CBS has Dallas. The show was eventually canceled; only 14 episodes were ever produced.
It was also one of the few shows whose episodes I kept on old VHS tapes, tapes that still had all the old television commercials intact. Fun stuff. Some of the commercials feature Max Headroom shilling for Coca-Cola.
After cancellation, the show did appear in reruns from time to time, running in short blocks on cable channels like TechTV and the Sci-Fi channel, so it wasn’t like there weren’t appreciative fans of the show.
And now comes the news that the original ABC series is now being released on DVD. Yeah. I’m stoked.
Shout! Factory, a company that has successfully released DVD television series compilations, has acquired the rights to produce a DVD set of the original Max Headroom ABC series. Plans are underway to add lots of extras to the DVD set, and I’m hoping there are plenty of interviews with the show’s stars and maybe even some episode commentary. The set is scheduled to appear on store shelves on August 10.
From what I understand, Max Headroom was one of the most requested shows for a DVD release, and now it’s finally happening.
Chuck The Writer 