Max Headroom

Everyone seems to remember Max Headroom, the character and Coke pitchman, but a lot of people forget about the series Max was in. The other thing a lot of people forget is that Max in the TV screen was _not_ cgi; Max was pre-cgi, and Matt Frewer did incredibly good acting as Max. Besides that, Matt also was the lead in the series and did a lot of work as Edison Carter as well as Max.

The series didn't last nearly long enough for me; the original title, "Twenty Minutes Into the Future" is very accurate-- technologically, stylistically, and in terms of content and post-production, "Max Headroom" was ahead of its time. It was a mid-season replacement and never found its audience; the database lists the tv-movie, the series (14 or 15 eps), and the original talk show which started the whole thing. I'm still amazed at the wisdom (or lack thereof) of television execs who can cancel a series halfway through a season. Then again, "Max Headroom" was about television, making some eerily accurate predictions (CNN, tabloid talk shows), and television execs are nothing if not chickens.

Still, it would be too, too cool to see Max pop up to comment about the millennium...

I rarely gush about TV shows, especially when they haven't been on in over a decade, but I gush about MH. This show was beyond cool, it was beyond hip, and it was far too intelligent to have been on the air in the late 80s. I was lucky enough to be able to catch MH in sindication on cable a few years ago and to validate my high opinions of the show. It was still brilliant. A few episode summaries might help to clarify:

Blank Reg (a blank is a person who has been removed from the corporate system, they have few rights, but the 'powers that be' can't easily find them) is put on trial for hacking (a major crime). The court is a gameshow with gameshow host for a judge and an opinion poll for a jury. I am glad to see how far off this is from reality - sarcasm :(

Another episode involved a sport called rake-boarding, where skateboarders would attempt to disembowel each other while performing nifty stunts. Thank god mass media has not opted for gladiatorial shows...

My question was never why this show got cancelled, but who the hell got the idea to put it on the air in the first place. I mean, this was a show whose primary entertainment value was in skewering the very medium which presented it. I can't believe that the mucky-mucks even allowed this to be seen, nevertheless broadcast.

Each show was intelligent, witty and eerily prescient. I suppose the final irony was that the show itself was cancelled, but the problems that it warned us about have come true. If you get the chance to see the extant shows, see them. They are among the only truly visionary and artistic and entertaining things to have been on stupid-box since its inception.

I happened on the "Max Headroom: 20 minutes into the future" film on the cable channel Cinemax by accident in 1986 or so. The story, the setting, and the characters drew me in and I was blown away. Then I found out ABC would be doing a version with 3 of the main characters from the UK film - Matt Frewer, Amanda Pays, and William Morgan Sheppard as "Blank Reg".

While the ABC version was a good copy, like any copy, it just wasn't the same. The UK film, talk show, and ABC version spawned Max as a celebrity. He was everywhere including being a pitchman for Coke.

If you want the best "Max Headroom" experience, see the 1985 UK film. But if they ever broadcast the ABC series, see it.

What is ironic is that the motivation for the evil deeds of the corporate owners of Network 23 is what did in this series. It was put up against ratings giants "Dallas" and "Miami Vice" and canceled midway through their only season.

Here's a piece of trivia. Max Headroom was filmed at 30 frames a second instead of the standard 24 frames a second. One of the reasons was so the series could more easily incorporate video with film, but a welcomed side-effect was that it gave the show a Hi-Def, futuristic look on 1980s television. It really did look different from any other show on TV.

What's interesting is that some current shows on video shoot at 24 or 25 frames a second to look more like film. It would be interesting to see what some filmed shows would look like in HDTV if they were shot at at 30 frames a second. You would get true HD.

Doesn't hold up well at all. At times slow, other times heavy handed attempts at satire. The wannabe MTV graphics look very dated.

But when the humor hits its target, it's rewarding.

"Remember when we yelled No Future? Here we are." "A bad credit report? That's worse than murder!"

If you're not watching it for nostalgia, be prepared for long slow stretches.