Max Headroom
Blipverts
TV Flash files “Blipverts” as a desk essential hour — Max Headroom (1987–1988) on ABC, season 1, episode 1, aired 1987-03-31, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E01: listed hour 1 of 14 in the Max Headroom guide, first listed hour of season 1. It aired 1987-03-31 (60 min). No earlier hour is listed in this guide. Next is “Rakers” (S01E02).
Essential hour: “Blipverts”. Blipverts is the stuttering host as primetime: Frewer's Max, TV-news as authoritarian weather, the sting still in the title. Coke ads came later.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Top TV reporter Max Edison discovers Network 23 is experimenting with advertising that is lethal to some viewers. His boss tries to kill him and copy his mind to a controllable simulation. Instead Edison survives - and Max Headroom is born.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Blipverts sit in the Max Headroom guide?
S01E01 is listed hour 1 of 14 — first listed hour of season 1, season 1 episode 1.
When did Max Headroom S01E01 air?
Blipverts aired 1987-03-31 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Is Max a real CGI character?
Stuttering computer-generated host as the 1980s sold it — Frewer in a dual role, chrome as aesthetic. The ads sometimes outshone the ABC series. The blipverts are the sting.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Twenty minutes into the future: stuttering computer-generated host, TV-news as authoritarian weather, and cyberpunk chrome on ABC of all places. Matt Frewer's Max became a Coke pitchman who sometimes outshone the series. Brief, glossy, and still the weirdest primetime warning about media monopolies America accidentally aired. The blipverts still sting.
Two seasons. Fourteen hours. ABC, 1987–1988, after Channel 4 U.K. origins: investigative reporter Edison Carter and his digital alter ego expose corporate media dystopia — twenty minutes into the future. That is the window, not a chrome souvenir. Max Headroom, from George Stone, Annabel Jankel, and Rocky Morton, put Matt Frewer in the dual role of Carter and the stuttering computer-generated host, with Amanda Pays and Chris Young. Cyberpunk visual language on American network primetime, however briefly. TV-news…
Filed against
- Matt Frewer as Edison Carter / Max Headroom
Matt Frewer stuttered the future as Edison Carter / Max Headroom on Max Headroom — twenty minutes into the future, computer-generated host, TV-news as authoritarian weather, cyberpunk chrome on ABC of all places. A Coke pitchman who…
- Amanda Pays as Theora Jones
Amanda Pays played Theora Jones on Max Headroom — cyberpunk chrome on ABC, TV-news as authoritarian weather, twenty minutes into the future. Matt Frewer’s stuttering host sometimes outshone the series; Pays is the control-room pulse…
- Chris Young as Bryce Lynch
Chris Young played Bryce Lynch on Max Headroom — twenty minutes into the future, a stuttering computer-generated host, TV-news as authoritarian weather, cyberpunk chrome on ABC of all places. Matt Frewer's Max sometimes outshone the…