An Introduction to Max Headroom

Bryce Lynch explains.
Actually this is only a portion of a file from...

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Compiled by Ross Smith. Comments, corrections, and additions to me (alien@acheron.amigans.gen.nz). Edited by Saul Jaffe, moderator SF-Lovers Digest (sf-lovers-request@rutgers.edu).

An Introduction to Max Headroom

20 MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE

Max : "Special bulletin : There is still no news from New Zealand. If they ever have any, we'll be sure to let you know."

-- History --

Edison : "Since when has news been entertainment?!"

Murray : "Er ... since it was invented?"

"Max Headroom" was the first, and so far the only, cyberpunk TV series. It was characterised by intelligent scripts; a quirky sense of humour; some serious speculation about the power and ethics of television; a slightly satirical but intricately realised vision of the future with a gritty, "Brazil"-like, "retro-tech" style; frequent references to traditional cyberpunk concepts ("ice", "flatline", nanotechnology, and so on); and some very good computer-generated special effects (mostly done on Amiga 1000s, by the way ... somebody knows a great hunk of hardware when they see one). Being an intelligent and sophisticated series, it was, of course, cancelled after one season.

The story began in 1984, when Channel Four in Britain wanted to produce a really unusual music-video show, and decided to use a (fake) computer-generated host. They invented the character of Max Headroom, and also commissioned a screenplay describing the fictional story of his origin. The original plan was to split this up into five-minute segments and scatter it among the music videos, but they soon realised that this would be impractical. Instead, it was produced as a feature-length made-for-TV movie, and was shown as a pilot for the music series, to general critical acclaim. Max Headroom, played by a heavily made-up Matt Frewer, went on to host the series (although both the British series and the later American one featured computer graphics on a large scale, Max himself was never an actual computer image).

In 1987, Lorimar in the US acquired the rights to the character, and produced one season (fourteen episodes of about 45 minutes each) of a series based on the British movie. The first episode was a somewhat shorter version of the original story, featuring some of the same actors; later episodes continued the story of Max Headroom, reporter Edison Carter, and Network 23.

Differences between the British and American versions of the pilot ... the British version was longer (about twice as long, in fact) and included a few characters who didn't show up until later episodes in the American version (notably Dominique and Blank Reg of Bigtime TV), but the plot was generally similar, just shown in more detail. The main differences were in the character of Bryce Lynch (in the British version he was a nasty little brat who ended up going down with Grosman (Grossberg), whereas in the American version he had an attack of conscience and ended up on Edison Carter's side), and in the fate of Max himself (in the British version he ended up with Bigtime TV, in the American version he returned to Network 23).

Incidentally, from the birthdate and age given for Bryce Lynch (in the novelisation by Steve Roberts), it can be deduced that "Max Headroom" (at least the British version) takes place in the year 2004.

-- Credits --

Grossberg : "Max, this is the executive board of Network 23."

Max : "You mean you're the people who execute audiences?"

Three actors (Matt Frewer, Amanda Pays, and William Morgan Sheppard) played the same roles in both versions.

Comments? Questions? Observations? Submissions? Mail comments about this page to Blank Joe.
jastruss@iastate.edu (Joe Struss)
: 20 min.