Max Headroom

Max became a minor celebrity, and appeared in commercials in the UK. To 'explain' him, Channel 4 created a one-hour movie, called Twenty Minutes Into the Future, which was expanded into the pilot episode and partially recast when the TV series was produced for US television.

Twenty Minutes Into the Future

The movie and series follow the exploits of crusading investigative reporter Edison Carter (also Matt Frewer), in a future very similar to today. It is always 'twenty minutes into the future', and the show's writers clearly anticipated our hundreds-of-channels world. Carter works for Network 23, in a future dominated by greedy corporations, where networks compete for ratings on a minute-by-minute basis.

Carter finds clues that his own network is involved in the development of a type of commercial, called 'blipverts', that can pack an entire sales message into a very brief 2-3 second period. The only problem - 'blipverts' can overstimulate the very sedentary (couch potatoes), causing their heads to explode! But the commercials are so effective that the sponsors are unwilling to give them up.

Carter finds himself stalked by his own network. Fleeing from hired thugs on a motorcycle, he attempts to drive through the exit as the ramp is being raised, flinging him head first into the dangling warning sign that reads 'Max Headroom 2.3 m'.

The Birth of Max Headroom

While Carter is unconscious, Network 23's 'mad scientist' Bryce Lynch (Chris Young), a teenage genius, digitizes Carter's mind so that it can be interrogated. Since the last thing Carter remembers seeing is the warning sign, the created personna answers to the name 'Max Headroom', and has a mind of its own.

Soon Max escapes from Lynch's computer system and has free run of the computer and television systems of Network 23, where he routinely preempts regular programming to present his own side of things.

Max stutters when he talks, quips remorselessly, and is a surprise hit on Network 23. The network bosses would love to rein him in and exploit him, but there's no controlling the digital and uncatchable Max, who allies with Edison Carter when it suits him.

The Show

The series ran very briefly in the US - lampooning television itself on television has never been a route to a lengthy career. But it was an instant cult hit.

The future of twenty minutes from now was bleak and dystopian, with greedy corporations setting the agenda and the common people having very little privacy or say in matters. In fact, quite a bit like now.

Carter uncovers and exposes wrong-doing for ratings, assisted by Theora, his 'controller' back at the network. She plays the computer system like a violin, guiding Carter through mazes and avoiding surveillance to bag his target. Max may or may not choose to assist them, depending on his whims.

Cyberpunk Ahead of Its Time

Max Headroom was televised cyberpunk, in an age that didn't even have a term for 'cyberpunk'. The look was anarchronistic - the hulking computer monitors being driven by a keyboard right from an old Remington manual typewriter, and offices being cooled by oscillating fans that were right out of the 1930s.

Why this series is not yet available on DVD is a mystery to many.