christopherl bennett
2020-01-27 20:25:44 UTC
I recently rented the DVD set of the 1987 Max Headroom TV series from
Netflix. This is a show I watched in its first run, and I remembered being
rather fond of it, finding it innovative and enjoyable and regretting that it
was cancelled after only 13 episodes (out of 14 that were made). And its
certainly been acclaimed in the years since for its innovation. It was a
cyberpunk show just a few years after the term cyberpunk was coined just
about the only case I know of where a television show was right on the cusp
of a new science-fictional development rather than lagging a decade or two
behind prose SF. It was prophetic in predicting broadcasting trends like a
proliferation of hundreds of channels, the 24-hour news cycle, the existence
of a global computer/entertainment network dominating peoples lives, and the
manipulation of the news by corporations. And it was daring for being a
network television show whose whole raison detre was to satirize and
critique television networks. Not to mention that it essentially launched
the career of genre stalwart Matt Frewer, who played the heroic journalist
Edison Carter and his computer-generated alter ego, Max Headroom.
(For those who arent in the know, in real life, Max Headroom was created as
a novel kind of host for a British music-video show. The idea was to use
something completely computer-generated rather than the usual human hosts, a
literal talking head. They didnt have the CGI technology to pull that off
for real, so they put Matt Frewer in prosthetic makeup simulating the slick,
angular look of 80s computer graphics and used editing tricks to make him
jerk and stu-stu-stutter so hed appear artificial. In order to explain this
host character, they developed a pilot film set in a Blade Runner/Brazil-
inspired future in which investigative journalist Edison Carter was injured
in pursuit of a story and had his mind scanned and copied into a computer in
order to find out what he knew, creating Max, a duplicate of Edisons mind
that was a little bit off and had a far more eccentric personality, as a
result of having the entirety of the worlds TV content pouring through his
mind, or some such thing. Basically he was a distillation of all TV, a
pastiche of slick TV pitchmen, simultaneously a child of and a critic of pop
culture. ABC executives saw the pilot and bought it as a US series, remaking
the pilot and recasting everyone except leads Frewer and Amanda Pays and
supporting player William Morgan Sheppard. Although Max was far more
successful as a music video/talk-show host and Coca-Cola pitchman.)
On seeing the show again after nearly a quarter-century, though, I find it
hasnt aged well. It wasnt as impressive as I remembered. The writing is
often sloppy. In the pilot, teen genius Bryce Lynch (Chris Young), Maxs
creator, spends much of the episode trying to kill Edison on orders from his
sleazy boss, which is what leads to Maxs creation in the first place. And
yet when Edison meets him later in the episode, this kid who was
sociopathically chuckling during his attempted murder of Edison mere minutes
before suddenly says Im glad you didnt die, and for the rest of the
series, Bryce is Edisons ally and tech support. Sure, he was occasionally
portrayed as amoral a blatant example of the fictional stereotype of the
genius whos a walking computer with no human feeling but the total lack of
any consequences or even acknowledgment of his attempted homicide is very
awkward.
A lot about the show is very broad the satire, the cartoony portrayal of
Max and in hindsight it feels fairly crude. The portrayal of the
logistics of Edisons job was awkward its hard to believe that he could
just cut into any other programming with a live and direct story, or that
hed so often go on the air without yet having a full picture of what he was
reporting on (although, admittedly, that doesnt stop a lot of modern
telejournalists). And sometimes the writing is stilted in ways that you can
tell are the result of network executives having no faith in the intelligence
of the viewer. For instance, in one episode, the police enter a suspects
home and discover that she had an off switch on her television. The cops
react in shock to the fact, and one of them says Shell get twenty years for
that. Any conscious viewer would understand at this point that in the world
of Max Headroom, its illegal to have an off switch on your TV. And yet we
then cut to another angle and hear the off-camera cops voiceover adding,
Off switches are illegal! As if the other cops he was talking to didnt
already know that. Granted, thats an instance of the show being held back
by its network, but theres enough about the shows own writing that doesnt
work as well as it could.
In particular, for a show called Max Headroom, it isnt generally about Max
Headroom. It wouldve been more accurate to call it Edison Carter. Sure,
there are episodes where they manage to make good use of Max as a character
or a concept either someone wants to obtain Maxs unique technology for
some reason, or Max is the only one who can get into a bad guys system, or
Max is needed as a distraction. Theres one particularly good episode,
Neurostim, in which Edisons relationship with Max has become strained but
Max is the only one who can save him from an addictive VR product, so they
have to have a meeting of minds and hash out their conflict (although it kind
of fizzles out at the end). But there are too many other episodes where Max
contributes nothing to the story beyond popping into a scene and making
wisecracks or pithy observations about the storys events. Sometimes his
comments serve to address the theme of the episode, but sometimes they serve
no purpose but to give Max some screen time in a story that has nothing to do
with him.
Also, I have to say, I think Matt Frewer doesnt work as well as a heroic
lead as he does as a quirky character actor. He was cast as Max first, of
course, and played Edison because of that. But hes just a bit too gawky in
appearance and voice to be entirely convincing as a hard-hitting, ultra-
manly, fearless investigative reporter. Or rather, its not that he wasnt
reasonably good in the role, its just that it didnt feel like the right
role for him, that it didnt let him do what he does best (although he had
Max for that). As for his leading lady Amanda Pays, she was very lovely and
had that wonderful throaty British contralto but as I discovered when I
bought the DVD set of The Flash, shes kind of one-note as an actress, never
really varying her delivery or showing much emotional range. So as lovely as
the timbre of her voice is, I tend to get tired of listening to her if I
watch too many episodes in a row.
Still, in the shows defense, I guess a lot of the reason it doesnt age well
is because it broke new ground that subsequent shows have built on and
expanded on. These days, weve grown used to TV shows mocking their own
networks The Simpsons has spent a generation poking fun at the FOX network
but at the time, it was daring and subversive. And if the future it
predicted seems quaint in some ways now, its only because so much of what it
predicted has become our everyday reality, just in a different form.
And a lot of its writing problems can be chalked up to growing pains as the
writers tried to figure out this new world and how to tell stories in it.
The writing did get stronger and more consistent as the show went on, and
they overall managed to find more ways to integrate Max into the stories,
although he couldve been left completely out of the final two episodes
without altering them materially.
Its interesting to note, by the way, how many of this shows cast members
went on to appear on various Star Trek series, or were already veterans of
the original series regulars or near-regulars such as Frewer, George Coe,
W. Morgan Sheppard, and Concetta Tomei, recurring players like Sherman Howard
(billed as Howard Sherman), Rosalind Chao, and Andreas Katsulas, and guests
like Joseph Ruskin, John Winston, Robert OReilly, Lycia Naff, John Fleck,
James Greene, Gregory Itzin, and Jenette Goldstein. (And Lee Wilkof, one of
the semiregular Network 23 board members, did a role in a Trek audio book
once.) Once or twice, we got as many as five past or future Trek players in
one Max episode. Just thought Id mention it
Netflix. This is a show I watched in its first run, and I remembered being
rather fond of it, finding it innovative and enjoyable and regretting that it
was cancelled after only 13 episodes (out of 14 that were made). And its
certainly been acclaimed in the years since for its innovation. It was a
cyberpunk show just a few years after the term cyberpunk was coined just
about the only case I know of where a television show was right on the cusp
of a new science-fictional development rather than lagging a decade or two
behind prose SF. It was prophetic in predicting broadcasting trends like a
proliferation of hundreds of channels, the 24-hour news cycle, the existence
of a global computer/entertainment network dominating peoples lives, and the
manipulation of the news by corporations. And it was daring for being a
network television show whose whole raison detre was to satirize and
critique television networks. Not to mention that it essentially launched
the career of genre stalwart Matt Frewer, who played the heroic journalist
Edison Carter and his computer-generated alter ego, Max Headroom.
(For those who arent in the know, in real life, Max Headroom was created as
a novel kind of host for a British music-video show. The idea was to use
something completely computer-generated rather than the usual human hosts, a
literal talking head. They didnt have the CGI technology to pull that off
for real, so they put Matt Frewer in prosthetic makeup simulating the slick,
angular look of 80s computer graphics and used editing tricks to make him
jerk and stu-stu-stutter so hed appear artificial. In order to explain this
host character, they developed a pilot film set in a Blade Runner/Brazil-
inspired future in which investigative journalist Edison Carter was injured
in pursuit of a story and had his mind scanned and copied into a computer in
order to find out what he knew, creating Max, a duplicate of Edisons mind
that was a little bit off and had a far more eccentric personality, as a
result of having the entirety of the worlds TV content pouring through his
mind, or some such thing. Basically he was a distillation of all TV, a
pastiche of slick TV pitchmen, simultaneously a child of and a critic of pop
culture. ABC executives saw the pilot and bought it as a US series, remaking
the pilot and recasting everyone except leads Frewer and Amanda Pays and
supporting player William Morgan Sheppard. Although Max was far more
successful as a music video/talk-show host and Coca-Cola pitchman.)
On seeing the show again after nearly a quarter-century, though, I find it
hasnt aged well. It wasnt as impressive as I remembered. The writing is
often sloppy. In the pilot, teen genius Bryce Lynch (Chris Young), Maxs
creator, spends much of the episode trying to kill Edison on orders from his
sleazy boss, which is what leads to Maxs creation in the first place. And
yet when Edison meets him later in the episode, this kid who was
sociopathically chuckling during his attempted murder of Edison mere minutes
before suddenly says Im glad you didnt die, and for the rest of the
series, Bryce is Edisons ally and tech support. Sure, he was occasionally
portrayed as amoral a blatant example of the fictional stereotype of the
genius whos a walking computer with no human feeling but the total lack of
any consequences or even acknowledgment of his attempted homicide is very
awkward.
A lot about the show is very broad the satire, the cartoony portrayal of
Max and in hindsight it feels fairly crude. The portrayal of the
logistics of Edisons job was awkward its hard to believe that he could
just cut into any other programming with a live and direct story, or that
hed so often go on the air without yet having a full picture of what he was
reporting on (although, admittedly, that doesnt stop a lot of modern
telejournalists). And sometimes the writing is stilted in ways that you can
tell are the result of network executives having no faith in the intelligence
of the viewer. For instance, in one episode, the police enter a suspects
home and discover that she had an off switch on her television. The cops
react in shock to the fact, and one of them says Shell get twenty years for
that. Any conscious viewer would understand at this point that in the world
of Max Headroom, its illegal to have an off switch on your TV. And yet we
then cut to another angle and hear the off-camera cops voiceover adding,
Off switches are illegal! As if the other cops he was talking to didnt
already know that. Granted, thats an instance of the show being held back
by its network, but theres enough about the shows own writing that doesnt
work as well as it could.
In particular, for a show called Max Headroom, it isnt generally about Max
Headroom. It wouldve been more accurate to call it Edison Carter. Sure,
there are episodes where they manage to make good use of Max as a character
or a concept either someone wants to obtain Maxs unique technology for
some reason, or Max is the only one who can get into a bad guys system, or
Max is needed as a distraction. Theres one particularly good episode,
Neurostim, in which Edisons relationship with Max has become strained but
Max is the only one who can save him from an addictive VR product, so they
have to have a meeting of minds and hash out their conflict (although it kind
of fizzles out at the end). But there are too many other episodes where Max
contributes nothing to the story beyond popping into a scene and making
wisecracks or pithy observations about the storys events. Sometimes his
comments serve to address the theme of the episode, but sometimes they serve
no purpose but to give Max some screen time in a story that has nothing to do
with him.
Also, I have to say, I think Matt Frewer doesnt work as well as a heroic
lead as he does as a quirky character actor. He was cast as Max first, of
course, and played Edison because of that. But hes just a bit too gawky in
appearance and voice to be entirely convincing as a hard-hitting, ultra-
manly, fearless investigative reporter. Or rather, its not that he wasnt
reasonably good in the role, its just that it didnt feel like the right
role for him, that it didnt let him do what he does best (although he had
Max for that). As for his leading lady Amanda Pays, she was very lovely and
had that wonderful throaty British contralto but as I discovered when I
bought the DVD set of The Flash, shes kind of one-note as an actress, never
really varying her delivery or showing much emotional range. So as lovely as
the timbre of her voice is, I tend to get tired of listening to her if I
watch too many episodes in a row.
Still, in the shows defense, I guess a lot of the reason it doesnt age well
is because it broke new ground that subsequent shows have built on and
expanded on. These days, weve grown used to TV shows mocking their own
networks The Simpsons has spent a generation poking fun at the FOX network
but at the time, it was daring and subversive. And if the future it
predicted seems quaint in some ways now, its only because so much of what it
predicted has become our everyday reality, just in a different form.
And a lot of its writing problems can be chalked up to growing pains as the
writers tried to figure out this new world and how to tell stories in it.
The writing did get stronger and more consistent as the show went on, and
they overall managed to find more ways to integrate Max into the stories,
although he couldve been left completely out of the final two episodes
without altering them materially.
Its interesting to note, by the way, how many of this shows cast members
went on to appear on various Star Trek series, or were already veterans of
the original series regulars or near-regulars such as Frewer, George Coe,
W. Morgan Sheppard, and Concetta Tomei, recurring players like Sherman Howard
(billed as Howard Sherman), Rosalind Chao, and Andreas Katsulas, and guests
like Joseph Ruskin, John Winston, Robert OReilly, Lycia Naff, John Fleck,
James Greene, Gregory Itzin, and Jenette Goldstein. (And Lee Wilkof, one of
the semiregular Network 23 board members, did a role in a Trek audio book
once.) Once or twice, we got as many as five past or future Trek players in
one Max episode. Just thought Id mention it