The show's look is what keeps it fresh today and the creators admitted that both Blade Runner and Mad Max II, the Road Warrior were clear inspirations. Of course, it threw in a nerdy computer whiz kid in a bid for younger viewers, much like all the movies of the day (eg., Wargames with Matthew Broderick) where Brat Pack types were heroes.
The series, in my opinion, was fabulous, maybe even the best TV show of the 1980s. The capitalist system eating itself was the main theme of the show, as was the idea of "managing" the message and the public narrative to keep it interesting, but not TOO interesting. They had themselves a dilemma: Carter's news reports were empowering and exciting for the have-nots, which meant big viewership and ratings and sales, yet that very threat of exposing the power structure couldn't be tolerated. Any time Edison got to TOO close, the suits would pull the plug. To say this was prescient is an understatement, given the homogeneity of mainstream media control today, where any attempts to get at real truths were/are quashed, while presenting a charade of real journalism. Max was a computer-generated version of a muckraking go-getter reporter, Edison Carter, whose forte was exposing the corruption of the very people he worked for (Max, while inside the computer/network TV electronic innards would assist his alter-ego human in solving the mysteries). It was against the law to turn off the TVs and TVs were everywhere, even in the streets. TV watching was mandatory, and the adverts, known as blipverts, were designed by scientists to tickle the viewers' very nerve endings and brain synapses into submission. it was a grimy world of gleaming skyscrapers and dark board rooms with the world veiled in the smoke rising from the street fires of the poor. The show was basically about a dystopian future where the divide between the privileged elites and street-dwelling have-nots, the punker types, was vividly clear. This pilot film and the subsequent American TV show that ran for a mere 12 (14 were made) episodes from 1987 to early 1988 effectively synthesized several artistic currents. It is everything that was good about Brit cyberpunk of the time. To introduce Max to the public, the creative team made a fantastic pilot film in 1985 titled, Max Headroom, 20 Minutes Into the Future. Frewer was lucky to have been in the right place at the right time one of the few American actors on the pavement in London then, and the creators picked him instantly for his square-jawed look. Max, unknown to me, was not the creation of the actor, Matt Frewer, but of a team of writers and creatives who had been asked to devise a computer-aged talking head segue MC, or VJ, for a British music video show. Even so, as a pre-CGI conception of CGI, he was actually not too bad. The slicked-back, metallic-suited Aryan sharp edges of his look channeled the current style, the Grace Joneses and the Devos of the day, cementing him firmly in his time. The mixed messages, I think, resulted in a cognitive dissonance, and relegated him to the status of trivia question.
His guilt-by-association tie to a failed product, New Coke, probably didn't help his legacy.
The wisecracking, glitchy proto-computer-generated talking head was saturation bombed on the public from 1985 to 1988 in a way that would guarantee subsequent apathy, mockery and derision - meant to be a symbol of rebellion and edginess while at the same time made a mascot for the ultimate in normie shilldom, as an ad man for Coca-Cola. Max Headroom was, arguably, the first forced meme before the existence of the internet. The wisecracking, glitchy proto-computer-generated talking head was saturation bombed on the public from 1985 to 1988 in a way that would guarantee subsequent apathy, mockery and derision - meant to be a symbol of rebellion and edginess while at the same time made a mascot for the ultimate in normie shilldom, as an ad man for No, I don't have this book, just using it as a launch pad for some observations.
No, I don't have this book, just using it as a launch pad for some observations.