To me, the most brilliant aspect of all is the origin of the title character.
#Amanda pays max headroom series#
This is smart stuff - and way ahead of its time, as a good sci-fi series should be. "I can't use more than 30 seconds ," he says. The cast of Max Headroom: (Left to right) Matt Frewer, Amanda Pays, Jeffrey Tambor, Morgan Sheppard and Chris Young (top)īack in the Network 23 control room, Murray the director - played by Jeffrey Tambor, long before The Larry Sanders Show and Arrested Development - glances at the screen. Plots have to do with Network 23, or other broadcast operations, trying to increase their audience share and maximize their advertising revenue through all sorts of nefarious means - like subliminal ads called "blipverts," for example, that run too quickly to fast-forward through. Like Max Headroom the character, who is an irrepressible talking head, Max Headroom the series dares to bite the hand that feeds it. One detail they got wrong, though, was the size of his camera: It's huge.īut so are some of the ideas this series floats, very sneakily, into a broadcast television program. Played by Matt Frewer, who also plays Max, Edison is a one-man bureau, carrying his own camera and reporting live by satellite - one of many visions of the future this series got right. The biggest media giant in the world is Network 23, a global operation - and one of its biggest stars is Edison Carter, a hard-hitting reporter in the 60 Minutes tradition. The show is set, as it proclaims at the start of each hour, "20 minutes into the future," but it's a very dark, cynical, Blade Runner type of future.
#Amanda pays max headroom tv#
There were only 14 episodes of the TV series, and they're all on Max Headroom: The Complete Series. That's Max Headroom - with a stutter, both aural and visual, that's like a record needle stuck in a groove. No hands, no body, just a head - a head that looks manufactured, like a plastic dummy, but also is eerily human. Now, in front of that background, place a talking head. Imagine a background of thin, brightly lit neon tubes, rotating and pulsating in various geometric patterns. Max, a supposedly computer-generated TV host played by Matt Frewer, was a bona fide media sensation for a while: He hosted a music-video show, starred in ads for New Coke (OK, so that didn't go so well), even appeared on the cover of Newsweek.īut to those too young to have experienced Max firsthand, how do you describe him, much less explain him? Well, let's try. People who saw Max Headroom back in the '80s should have no problem remembering him instantly - and not necessarily from the ABC TV series, which shone briefly and brightly in 19. Matt Frewer is Edison Carter in this 1987 promotional still.Max Headroom (Matt Frewer) appeared in music videos, a feature film, a TV series and commercials for products like New Coke. Matt Frewer, Matt Frewer, and Amanda Pays. Image courtesy of Steve Roberts.Ĭharles Rocket as Network 23 executive Grossberg in a 1987 promotional still.
Steve Roberts in his 'Max Headroom' office. Matt Frewer, Amanda Pays, and Jeffrey Tambor. Image courtesy of Steve Roberts.Ĭhris Young as Max's creator, Bryce Lynch, in a 1987 promotional still.
Steve Roberts outside the 'Max Headroom' soundstage. Matt Frewer as investigative journalist Edison Carter. From left to right: Matt Frewer ("Edison Carter"/"Max Headroom"), Amanda Pays ("Theora Jones"), Chris Young ("Bryce Lynch"), Jeffrey Tambor ("Murray"), George Coe ("Ben Cheviot").