Max Headroom is a short-lived science fiction dystopian TV series that aired in America (on ABC) from 1987-1988. There were only 14 episodes (including one which was unaired). It featured Max Headroom, a supposedly computer-generated personality who was already familiar to television audiences through The Max Headroom Show (a youth-oriented talk / music video program).
In story, Max (Matt Frewer) is an A.I. originally created as a copy of celebrity investigative television journalist Edison Carter (also Matt Frewer), apparently with Carter’s personality but lacking his self-control. He also has the ability to come and go from TV screens any time he wishes, which makes him a powerful force in the show’s world, a near-future dystopia in which everything is shaped by corporations and networks chasing television ratings.
Max Headroom takes on religion in this episode, exploring how institutions of faith might operate in the television-fuelled world that lies twenty minutes into the future. The answer turns out to be not all that different than the cynical view that many have of the way religious institutions started to function when they discovered what they could do with TV back in the 1980s. The Vu-Age leader becomes a celebrity personalities who connect promises of religious rewards with appeals for financial support, with plenty of the hypocrisy that one expects with this sort of thing.
Taking it up a notch from a dystopian world point of view is the fact that the so-called Vu-Age Church is promising that people can be guaranteed a physical resurrection having their memories and consciences uploaded to a computer until such time that a clone bodies could be created for them to be returned to. (This is old-hat science fiction stuff now–it’s literally the plot of a show called Upload, for instance–but it was a bit more of an unusual idea back in the late 80s). However, it’s all a sham as they saved personalities are extremely limited, a fact that seems to be lost on people on by virtue of most of the population having become excessively stupid.
All of this is fine, but what makes the episode more interesting is the character Vanna Smith and her relationship with our hero, Edison Carter. Vanna is set up to be the obvious villain of the piece, but turns out to be reasonably sincere in her efforts, and someone that can ultimately be persuaded to see reason. It’s kind of refreshing to see her ultimately convinced to basically give in to the truth, allowing Max to live as Edison runs his expose.
Even more important is what Vanna brings out in Edison, which is a much-welcome sense of vulnerability. Up until this point, Edison has never been a character that we’ve really gotten inside of very much–he’s determined and principles, but not necessarily someone whose inner life you get much of a sense of. This is kind of ironic as the whole premise of the show is that Max Headroom has been brought to life directly out of that inner life.
But in Deities, we see Edison’s desire to re-kindle his relationship with Vanna, we see pain when he realize he’s been betrayed, and we see what his role as a journalist really means to him when he’s faced with the quandary of having to kill his story in order to save Max from destruction. And we also connect more with Max as the episode highlights the fact that Edison’s memories are also Max’s, and we see Max risk himself to save Edison, purely out of kindness. It all brings unexpected emotional depth to a series which most just existed on the surface.
Other Comments
• The Vu-Age church is said to be larger, in terms of air-time and ad-rates, than Islam, Judaism, IBM, Scientology, and all but two Christian denominations, and they are projected to become bigger than the Catholics and the 700 Club in a year’s time.
• Rosalind Chao shows up as another Network 23 reporter, Angie Berry. It’s a brief part, apparently her first of two.
• The guest cast also includes Gregory Itzin, who I know from 24 as the seemingly weak-willed but duplicitous president, Charles Logan.
• Gene Ashwell, a member of the Network 23 board who appears in most episodes of the show, is revealed to be a member of the Vu-Age church and the one responsible for kidnapping Max. But he doesn’t seem to suffer any reason consequences of this.
• The show makes real-life pop-culture references to Dobie Gillis (the main character of a popular TV show from the 1950s and 1960s) and Teddy Ruxpin (an animatronic talking animal toy).
• We learn that though Max Headroom is a popular public figure, his origins and connection with Edison Carter is still generally a secret.
• In one of the episodes more interesting lines of dialogue, Edison lists a variety of types of betrayal, using as examples the husband who goes to an unlicensed sex-therapist inappropriately and secretly, a child who won’t watch his TV, and TV heroes who turn out to be unheroic.
