The Max Headroom Rewatch: Blipverts, Part One

[jeriendhal]

Got Shout Factory's Complete Max Headroom collection for Christmas, and I rewatched the first episode last night.

To put this show in perspective, the original 1985 pilot "Max Headroom: Twenty Minutes into the Future" was a Blade Runner-esque tv movie intended as Max's origin story, to explain why the Max Headroom music video show (remember those?) had a bizarre "computer generated presenter" (actually Matt Frewer in a latex prothesis on a CSO background).

From that came the Max Headroom series, which produced 14 episodes (only 12 of which aired in the original run) that ran on ABC in 1987. The first episode "Blipvert" was a remake of the original TV movie, again featuring Matt Frewer as intrepid reporter Edison Carter, Amanda Pays as Theora Jones his Controller (ie: Voice With An Internet Connection), and later episodes bringing back veteran character actor W. Morgan Sheppard as the over the hill punk Blank Reg.

So this show appears on a major TV network, in the middle of Ronald Reagan's 2nd term as president, satirizing network television in general and the rise of "Infotainment" and reality TV in particular, not to mention all those lovely corporations enjoying the fruits of Trickle Down economics.

And GOD it was weird. It was a cyberpunk black comedy that sounds like something only Netflix would greenlight. The fact that it appeared for even just a season on something like ABC was amazing.

Our story starts with Edison hosting his show "Edison Carter Live and Direct", carrying his own camera as he infiltrates an apartment building where Metrocops are investigating the violent death of man. Before Carter can interview the man's wife, she's sedated by the cops, and the someone at Network 23 orders the story pulled even as Edison is reporting it. Edison's current Controller, Gorman, kills Edison's feed, and Edison barely escapes with his life when the Metrocops realize he's no longer transmitting and start beating him.

Understandably pissed, Edison demands a new controller from Murray, the show's producer (a pre-Arrested Development Jeffrey Tambor). Murray finds him Theora, but warns him off pursuing the investigation, noting the order to spike Edison's story came from "Very high up."

Meanwhile, we discover the "Very High Up" is Network 23's current CEO Ned Grossberg, who is chairing a board meeting about the disastrous rollout of Blipverts, which caused the apartment dweller's death. Invented by Bryce Lunch, Network 23's resident kid genius, Blipverts stuff 30 seconds of advertising in just 3 seconds. With the unfortunate side effect of occasionally making particularly slothful viewers spontaneously explode, due to a build up of unused electrical nerve impulses in their body.

Board member Ben Ceviot thinks the blipverts should be pulled immediately, but that would cause a serious rift with 23's major advertising client the Zik Zak corporation. Another board member is dismissive of Ben's concerns, noting "The only people affected would be the poor, the sick, and the unemployed. I mean, who really cares?"

(subtle, this show is not)

Edison, ignoring Murray's advice, gets a lead when Theora infiltrates the security feeds inside Network 23's building, catching a conversation between Ceviot and Grossberg that guides him to Bryce's lab in the building's secret Floor 13. Edison gets into Bryce's lab and find the videotape (!) of the incident that was recorded by the camera in the apartment's TV (because of course it would have one). After seeing the victim literally expand like a balloon and then explode (really pushing the boundaries of 80's broadcast TV) Edison is discovered by Bryce's lab security and has to run for it. After being chased all the way down to parking garage he steals a motorbike and tries to escape, only to crash. The last thing he sees is a vehicle barrier printed with the warning "MAX HEADROOM 2 METERS", just before he smashes right into it.

COMMERCIAL BREAK. TBC