Geekklesia

At 10:00 p.m. ET on March 31, 1987, American viewers were exposed to something very different than what they had come to expect from network television.  Last place ABC premiered the Max Headroom television series, riding off of the hugely popular character imported from the United Kingdom. By the time the first episode, ‘Blipverts,’ aired, the character of Max Headroom was already a well-known figure on both sides of the Atlantic.  Although the character became something of a marketing phenomenon pitching New Coke, Max was originally intended to be a ‘computer-generated’ on air personality introducing music videos for a show on Channel Four in the UK.  The executives wanted to flesh the character out a bit and give him a back story, a history that described where he came from.  Producer Peter Wagg, co-directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel and writer George Stone imagined a world in the not-too-distant future where television is the driving force in society...