As I found out in the Live On Network 23 featurette, the history of Max Headroom was quite an interesting one, starting as a gimmick to tie together music videos into a television show for a (then) small British television station, then - to establish a backstory for the Max Headroom character - having a one hour movie created for HBO, then getting picked up as an American television series, and landing a corporate sponsorship with Zik Zak Coca-Cola to push their "New Coke," something else that helped to define the decade of Reaganomics.
I think one of the best aspects of the Max Headroom show was the extremely ironic life-imitating-art aspect. The show depicts a dark-future where corporations run the government and network television is the law. It's illegal to have a television with an "off switch." Television is provided as a "right" and television units are all over the place, from vidiscreens the size of billboards (a la Times Square) to old CRT screens littering the wastelands, known as the Fringes, on the outskirts of town. They're in bad physical shape and are randomly placed about the streets and alleys in the slums, but they are working... and always on. Who's in charge is determined by who has the best ratings, and every day is sweeps week. While that might seem quite unlike the world we live in, at first, I have seen many perfectly functional televisions set out to curbs because a consumer purchased a brand new flat-panel the size of their wall, and video screens can be found on our cell-phones, wrist-watches, mp3 players and built into our cars. While it was a ridiculous concept during Max Headroom's day, we now have thousands of channels to choose from, whether you want to watch cartoons, old movies, animals or simply the weather - there's a channel out there for you. After watching the series, I found myself noticing certain things that ring true in real life from this series, from sitting in a small sandwich shop and noticing no less than four security cameras, to the countless bright and colorful plastic containers of snacks offered at the local convenience store, all promising to be delicious, but without any nutritional value in sight. And, while I'm at it, it's worth mentioning that the idea of television ratings electing our public officials is, sadly, a little to close to the truth for comfort these days. Even the writers don't necessarily think that we'll ever see an actual human-like artificial intelligence, but if you've talked to some of the better automated customer service systems or seen some of the chatterbots out there, these days, you might wonder if that's not too far off, either.
Max Headroom: The Complete Series features all fourteen episodes on four DVDs, starting with Blipverts, which presents the accidental creation of Max Headroom (Matt Frewer), a digital, autonomous artificially intelligent "clone" of Network 23's star investigative reporter, Edison Carter (also Matt Frewer), when he gets too close to a story on a new potentially lethal form of advertisement being introduced by his own network. The ruthless Chairman of the Board at Network 23, Ned Grossberg (Charles Rocket), deliberates over whether he should nurse Carter back to life or make him "disappear," but he's a valuable asset, and his decision depends on whether Carter has or has not "seen too much." Network 23's resident super-genius child prodigy hacker extraordinaire, Bryce (Chris Young), suggests that they simply dump a copy of his memory into a computer construct, then look at the memories themselves, rather than waking up the potential threat laying injured in front of them. Bryce's genius shines true, and the memories are, in fact, loaded into the computer, but it's more than just that - a virtual likeness of Edison Carter, calling himself Max Headroom appears. Now, the problem is compounded, as there are now two witnesses, one unconscious in the real world, and one unpredictable and uncontrollable, bouncing around in the electronic world.
It's quite interesting the way that Edison and Max play off and interact with each other. They are very much the same in a lot of ways, but, at the same time, they end up at odds with each other quite often, with Max wanting to "just do it" and Edison having to juggle his career, his personal life and whoever's out to get him that day, whether it be corporations, networks or Fringers hoping to mug him and make some quick creds off of his camera. Mind you, Max Headroom is filled with interesting interpersonal dynamics, from Edison Carter and his "Controller" Theora Jones (Amanda Pays), with their friendly flirting and excellent teamwork, to Carter and his hard and stubborn boss with heart of gold, Murray (Jeffrey Tambor). Another interesting and entertaining dynamic was the strange and never really explained relationship between Blank Reg (William Morgan Sheppard) and Blank Dominique (Concetta Tomei) of Big Time Television - a rolling television studio on wheels in the form of a big, pink bus. He was a full-grown man with a Mohawk and love of punk and heavy metal music, while she was an entrepreneur and as much of a sophisticate as her surroundings would allow her... and then some. She was always striving to build her little network into something bigger, and Blank Reg was always doing "the right thing," which tends not to pay so well, but he had an almost puppy-dog-like devotion to her, admiring her... (but don't tell her, mind you... don't want it to go to 'er 'ead.)
I watched Max Headroom when it aired, but I was surprised to find that there were several episodes that I hadn't seen. The show was the culmination of work, sweat, tears and love of several people, and it is both entertaining and thought-provoking. Whether you're a fan from back in the day or just wondering what this show was all about, I'd definitely recommend picking up Max Headroom: The Complete Series on DVD. The video quality of the original show was often intentionally degraded to achieve a gritty, news or security camera feel, so Blu-ray quality would be pointless for a good bit of the show... which is just as well, since, as it turns out, the original film was, evidently, lost, and Max Headroom: The Complete Series for DVD was made from a digital copy. Without the original film, it is unlikely that Max Headroom will be released on Blu-ray, so don't wait - pick up your copy on DVD today.
