Culture Shock 08.12.10: The future finally arrives for ahead-of-its-time show 'Max Headroom'

The future has finally caught up with "Max Headroom."

When it aired on ABC in 1987, it was ahead of its time — and ahead of most viewers. It was a critical darling, but a ratings disaster after ABC shifted it to the Friday-night death slot opposite "Dallas" and "Miami Vice." So, after just 14 episodes, ABC canceled it.

Yet if "Max Headroom" aired today, it would probably be a huge hit. It would go on for five or six seasons, have a complex and increasingly convoluted story arc, and just end up disappointing everyone with an unsatisfying series finale that resolves none of its major mysteries.

You know, maybe it's a good thing "Max Headroom" aired when it did. There are worse things to be than brilliant but canceled.

So, for those of you too young to remember 1987, who don't know how brilliant "Max Headroom" truly is, there's good news. All 14 episodes are now on DVD as "Max Headroom: The Complete Series."

An ambitious mix of "Blade Runner," Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" and what would later be known as "cyberpunk," "Max Headroom" is science fiction that confronts — head on, shall we say — the impact of technology and the media on everything from privacy and politics to religion and medicine.

Canadian actor Matt Frewer ("Watchmen") stars as Edison Carter, an investigative journalist for Network 23, the most watched and most powerful media outlet in a dystopian world set "20 minutes into the future" — or about 2004, actually — where all real power rests with the media.

In its never-ending battle for ratings dominance, Network 23 has a secret weapon: an unpredictable, anarchistic, computer-generated talking head created from Carter's memories — Max Headroom.

While Carter uncovers political and corporate wrongdoing, often involving his employer or its main advertiser, the nefarious Zik Zak corporation, Max has free rein to pop up whenever and wherever he chooses, both on Network 23's airwaves and inside its computer network.

Occasionally, Max stumbles upon information that helps Carter's investigations. And sometimes he even remembers to share it. For Carter, dealing with Max is like dealing with his inner child — a spoiled-rotten inner child who could probably do with a good spanking.

The show's creators intended "Max Headroom," in part, as a warning about the direction in which they saw society and the media moving.

For better or worse, some of their predictions have panned out, from e-mail to reality television.

Another purpose was to point out that the media often has an agenda of its own, which was always true, but not nearly so obvious before Fox News and MSNBC came along.

"Max Headroom" was subversive for its time, when three stodgy broadcast networks and PBS were the beginning, middle and end of the TV universe. But that doesn't mean it got everything right, and some of its predictions and warnings seem pretty silly today.

For example, Zik Zak is a Japanese-owned corporation run by stereotypical — and borderline offensive — Japanese bosses who speak loudly in broken English. Zik Zak represents 1980s paranoia about the Japanese "buying up" America, a non-threat at the time, and a ridiculous one in light of Japan's "lost decade" of economic stagnation.

On a larger level, "Max Headroom" overestimates the power of television, portraying it as an uncontrollable force that comes at you, whether you want it to or not. In "Max Headroom," TVs don't even have off switches; all you can do is change the channel. Television is top-down, authoritarian and inescapable.

In reality, in our world of 2010, we've never had more control over TV. We watch what we want, when we want, how we want. Between TiVo, Hulu, Netflix and on-demand, broadcasters have lost control. In effect, you can program your own network and, if you want, even avoid the commercials.

But even when it's wrong, "Max Headroom" is interesting. And science fiction always has more to do with its own time than any imagined future.

"Max Headroom" is a time capsule of a decade when we worried about all the wrong things.

Culture Shock 07.15.10: It's not just TV; it's cult TV

The distinction between "cult TV" and ordinary, run-of-the-mill, mainstream television is rapidly becoming hard to make.

Fan behavior once reserved for unabashedly cult programs like "Star Trek" now pops up even for what seem like decidedly mainstream shows. Ardent "Sex and the City" fans hold viewing parties, memorize trivia and learn to love cosmopolitans because they're Carrie Bradshaw's signature drink. Most of them do, however, draw the line at dressing like Carrie, whose unintentionally ironic lack of fashion sense makes even a typical Starfleet officer seem like a runway model.

On the other side of the ledger, cult TV shows are gaining followings that now extend well beyond their historic core audience of sci-fi geeks, animation fans and Britcom aficionados. (For you newbies, "Britcom" means "British comedy.")

"Lost," for example, dealt with such cult-TV subjects as time travel and parallel universes. Yet it garnered huge audiences for ABC, and its series finale provided heated water-cooler talk for the entire nation. The same goes for "Heroes" — at least during the first season, when it was still good. Before bad writing drove its audience away, "Heroes," a show all about comic-book iconography and characters with superpowers, was a mainstream hit.

Last year, I was in a local shopping center, minding my own business, when two teenage girls told me my "Doctor Who"-themed T-shirt was cool. That never would have happened 20 years ago. But now "Doctor Who," the dictionary definition of a cult show, is identifiable enough in America that it doesn't demand an explanation.

So, there are shows that are mainstream yet develop cult followings, and there are shows that are filled with cult-TV themes while still attracting millions of viewers. That makes it really difficult to determine what exactly is — and what isn't — cult TV nowadays.

That dilemma informs one chapter, titled "Mainstream Cult," of "The Cult TV Book: From ‘Star Trek' to ‘Dexter,' New Approaches to TV Outside of the Box." Edited by Stacey Abbott, the book is comprised of 26 chapters by different authors, writing about every facet of "cult television," plus case studies of various shows, from "Twin Peaks" and "The Prisoner" to "The Sopranos" and "South Park."

"The Cult TV Book" is good reading for fans of cult TV, as well as for anyone interested in where American pop culture now stands. But I won't try to recycle its conclusions here because I already have my own, which are deserving of their own cult following.

What makes a TV show a cult TV show? Is it the subject matter? Is it fan reaction? Is it having a small audience? Can a cult show have a large audience, just so long as a small portion of it is enthusiastic to the point of obsessive displays of devotion? Can I cram one more question into this paragraph?

Basically, any show, no matter how popular and regardless of its subject matter, can be a cult show if it has among its viewership a small, obsessive fan base. And there are more cult TV shows now than ever before simply because, between broadcast and cable, there are more shows than ever before. The only programs that can't be "cult" are popular reality and talent shows like "American Idol," because apparently everyone who watches them becomes obsessive.

Even the news can be cult TV, as anyone who has ever met deranged partisans of either Keith Olbermann or Glen Beck could tell you.

If a small group of people went to conventions dressed like Archie and Edith Bunker and traded tips about how to make scale replicas of Archie's easy chair, would "All in the Family" be cult TV? You know, it probably would.

But I'm not betting on any "All in the Family" conventions being held any time soon.

Culture Shock 05.27.10: Did 'Lost' get lost along the way?

If you haven't seen the conclusion of "Lost" yet, come back later. There are spoilers ahead.

So, was that the ending "Lost's" creators had in mind from the start?

Probably not, because it seemed a lot like an ending cobbled together during the final season to make up for most viewers having already guessed the original ending.

If you had "they're stuck in purgatory" in your office pool, you're a winner.

Well, almost. It turns out the "sideways timeline" introduced in season 6 was purgatory, while the Island was pre-purgatory, or maybe semi-purgatory, but definitely not just plain old purgatory, since that's what everyone had already guessed. Whatever the Island was, it made me glad that, unlike many of my friends, I hadn't invested a lot of time and emotion on "Lost."

On the list of TV shows with polarizing finales, "Lost" is going to rank pretty high, along with the likes of "Battlestar Galactica" and "The Sopranos," both of which had controversial endings I'll happily defend, after enough drinks.

If ABC's remake of "Life on Mars" had lasted more than one season, people would be arguing about its final episode, too. But nobody much cared about "Life on Mars." That's the difference. Viewers and critics alike really cared about "Lost" and "Battlestar Galactica" and "The Sopranos." And now some of them say they've been betrayed.

A common complaint about TV dramas with complex mythologies and storylines is the writers are just making things up as they go. That's how most TV shows are made, but for mythology-rich shows like "Lost," making it up as you go is a cardinal sin.

The major offender here is "The X-Files." Chris Carter clearly had no idea where his show was going, so in the end it's a miracle that all of the various conspiracy plotlines fit together as well as they did. If you have a couple of hours and a flow chart, you can see how all the threads converge.

The problem with "The X-Files" isn't that Carter had no grand plan and definite endgame. It's that the show stayed on the air too long. Most shows run out of steam around season 5 — for example, "House," which has been a disappointment all year. "The X-Files" should have ended with season 7. Instead, it limped along for two more pointless, mostly David Duchovny-free, years.

That's one thing "Lost's" staff writers got right. They decided to end with season 6. Besides, any longer and they would have had to explain how Hurley is the only person in history to gain weight — without resorting to cannibalism — while stranded on an island.

If I'm right that the Island was originally meant to be purgatory, then "Lost's" problem isn't making it up as you go but sticking too close to the original plan while pretending you're not.

Sticking with the plan has its own hazards. J. Michael Straczynski mapped out "Babylon 5" before the first episode aired. He even built in "trap doors" so he could make changes on the fly if an actor decided to leave. But he couldn't account for everything. He rushed season 4 to tie up loose ends in case the show didn't get its planned fifth season.

And when "Babylon 5" did get a fifth season, it mostly marked time until reaching its predestined conclusion.

So, if there's a lesson here, it's that you can have a master plan or you can make it up as you go. The risks are the same. Just don't end your TV series with anything involving purgatory.

Culture Shock 04.29.10: Syndicated TV now just game shows and judges

I totally dropped the ball on this one.

I hadn't realized that the market for scripted TV programs in first-run syndication had completely evaporated until a few weeks ago, when I read that "Legend of the Seeker" was the only such series still on the air.

And now "Legend of the Seeker" has been canceled, too. That means the only first-run syndicated TV programs left are game shows and shows about retired judges telling stupid people exactly how stupid they are.

Chalk up another victim of the ever-changing television landscape.

There was a time, back in the 1990s, when most of the TV programs I watched regularly were in first-run syndication. That's probably because I am a science-fiction geek, and no genre thrived in first-run syndication the way sci-fi did during the '80s and '90s.

The show that ignited the boom was "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

When Paramount brought "Star Trek" back to television in 1987, it bypassed the broadcast networks, opting instead to sell the series directly to local stations and split the advertising revenue. It was a daring move at the time, and it probably dredged up memories of an earlier big-budget sci-fi series that tried to make a go of it in first-run syndication, "Space: 1999."

Unfortunately, "Space: 1999" didn't fare well. Airing from 1975 to 1978, it was the most expensive TV series of its time, and it starred Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, who were still well-known from their time on "Mission: Impossible." But "Space: 1999" failed to live up to its pre-launch hype, and only two seasons were produced.

"Star Trek: The Next Generation," however, was a ratings juggernaut. Its success led to a tsunami of sci-fi programs entering the marketplace, including its first spin-off, "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."

Soon, the airwaves were full of syndicated SF, horror and fantasy programming.

Before he helmed the "Spider-Man" movies, Sam Raimi, along with Robert Tapert, produced "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" and its even more popular spin-off, "Xena: Warrior Princess." J. Michael Straczynski created his ambitious SF "novel" for television, "Babylon 5." And the list of shows based on popular movie franchises seemed endless: "Highlander," "Freddy's Nightmares," "Friday the 13th: The Series" and "War of the Worlds."

Even "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry got back into the game, despite having died in 1991. "Earth: Final Conflict" and "Andromeda," both based on Roddenberry's unused notes, entered syndication in 1997 and 2000, respectively. And in a weird twist of fate, both enjoyed longer runs — five seasons each — than the original "Star Trek," despite being shoddy, poorly written and generally awful.

But the syndication boom didn't last.

Paramount started its own channel, UPN, which aired the next two "Star Trek" series. And the launch of UPN and The WB — now merged as The CW — meant there were fewer independent stations needing to fill airtime with syndicated shows. Also, cable channels began to invest in their own original programming, which included "Babylon 5" moving from syndication to TNT for its final year.

At the same time, foreign markets evaporated, cutting off a major source of financing for America's syndicated dramas.

There were no scripted shows left in first-run syndication when Raimi and Tapert decided to give it another try in 2008 with "Legend of the Seeker," based on the fantasy novels of Terry Goodkind.

Now "Legend," too, is the stuff of legend, and a once-important chapter in TV history has become a footnote.

Culture Shock 04.15.10: New Doctor makes debut in Saturday's 'Doctor Who'

In Great Britain, the casting of a new lead actor in the long-running science fiction series "Doctor Who" is a monumental event. It's arguably second only to the crowning of a new monarch.

Fortunately, the first episode of Matt Smith's reign should put most fans at ease. The Doctor may be a new man, but his trusty time machine, the TARDIS, remains in good hands.

American viewers can see for themselves when "The Eleventh Hour" kicks off the new season of "Doctor Who," Saturday night at 8 on BBC America. And for newcomers to the series, who may be wondering what all the fuss is about, BBC America will air "Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide" during the preceding hour.

Simply put, "Doctor Who" is the longest-running sci-fi series on television. It originally aired from 1963 to 1989, when a hostile BBC controller and declining ratings did it in. Then, after a one-off TV movie in 1996, "Doctor Who" finally returned in 2005, with Christopher Eccleston ("Heroes") portraying the 900-year-old Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey.

Eccleston stayed on just one year before regenerating into the Doctor's 10th incarnation, David Tennant ("Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire").

Over four years and 47 episodes, Tennant redefined the Doctor for a new generation. And by the time he exited the TARDIS for good earlier this year, his incarnation of the Doctor had become the most popular since Tom Baker — the one with the toothy grin, long scarf and floppy hat — owned the role from 1974 to 1981.

Every new Doctor faces some bumps, and Smith is no exception. His tenure was controversial even before he filmed his first scene. At 27, he is the youngest actor to play the part, and he has the bad fortune to follow Tennant.

"The Eleventh Hour" begins with a damaged TARDIS crashing on Earth and the new Doctor still "cooking" after regenerating into his 11.0 version. But from there, Smith quickly finds his footing, and by the end of the episode, there's no doubt that he is the Doctor.

Smith's manic, quirky, yet authoritative performance echoes Doctors past — especially Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee — while leaving room for him to find his own voice in episodes to come.

He is aided by his new human traveling companion, Amy Pond (Karen Gillan), a young Scottish woman whose life the Doctor inadvertently turns upside down when he runs into her first as a young girl and then again 12 years later, although only five minutes later from his point of view. Time travel can be a tricky thing.

Smith's tenure also heralds a new executive producer/head writer in charge of the show.

Steven Moffat ("Coupling") takes over from Russell T Davies, the producer who dusted off the show for the 21st century. But while Davies liked to tug heartstrings to the point it became tiresome, Moffat specializes in clever, fast-paced storytelling, with more than a dash of the gothic creepiness that marked the show's high point in the mid-1970s.

Moffat wrote most of the best-received episodes of the Davies era, including "Blink" and the Eccleston two-parter "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances."

With a new Doctor firmly established and the series now under the guidance of its best writer, there is no better time to ask, "Doctor who?"

The answer doesn't disappoint.

British mogul set tone for 1960s cult television

Patrick McGoohan in "The Prisoner."

The copy on the book’s back cover says, “Think of any cult/fantasy television show of the 1960s or ’70s and the chances are that they were created by ITC ...”

That may be a bit of an overstatement, but just a bit.

The book in question is Robert Sellers’ “Cult TV: The Golden Age of ITC.” It’s an anecdote-filled history of one of the world’s most successful TV production companies, the Incorporated Television Company, better known simply as ITC.

Yet even if you’ve never heard of ITC, you’ve almost certainly heard of its shows, especially if you’re showing a little gray around the temples.

From the mid-1950s until its last gasp in the early ’80s, ITC produced cult classics like “Danger Man” (known in the U.S. as “Secret Agent”), “The Saint,” “Thunderbirds,” “The Prisoner,” “Space: 1999” and “The Muppet Show.”

Now it’s all coming back to you, isn’t it?

The prime mover behind ITC was its founder and chairman, Lew Grade.

A Jewish immigrant who grew up in London’s East End, Lew Grade rose to become Britain’s foremost media mogul. With his trademark cigars and uncanny deal-making abilities, Grade was a throwback to studio heads of Hollywood’s Golden Age — Britain’s answer to Louis B. Mayer (MGM) and Jack Warner (Warner Bros.).

When Britain ended the BBC’s broadcast monopoly in 1954, Grade’s ITC began producing programs for the new commercial network, Independent Television, or ITV. But Grade had larger ambitions. He wanted to make shows he could sell worldwide, and especially in the lucrative U.S. market.

So, ITC shot all of its programs on film rather than video to better compete with its slick American competition. Grade also wasn’t shy about hiring American actors.

Not everyone in Britain was happy with Grade’s approach. Some complained that ITC was making shows for Birmingham, Ala., instead of Birmingham, England. But they couldn’t dispute ITC’s success.

“Danger Man,” starring Patrick McGoohan as spy John Drake, became an international sensation. And McGoohan became such an important part of ITC that Grade couldn’t say no when McGoohan later proposed a series called “The Prisoner.”

Running only 17 episodes, “The Prisoner” is ITC’s most enduring program. McGoohan plays a former spy known only as Number Six. He is held captive in a dystopian community called The Village, where interrogators attempt to pry his secrets from him.

While superficially just another adventure show, “The Prisoner” is, at heart, a libertarian allegory pitting the individual against society, culminating in a surreal final episode that academics and fans alike are still trying to decode 40 years after it originally aired.

While ITC’s other shows didn’t attempt to reach “The Prisoner’s” artistic heights, most never failed to entertain. After “Danger Man,” “The Saint,” starring a young Roger Moore, was ITC’s signature hit. Moore followed up with “The Persuaders,” co-staring Tony Curtis, whom Grade personally persuaded to leap from movies to television.

But perhaps Grade’s most cherished accomplishment was “The Muppet Show.” When no American producer would back Jim Henson and his friends Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, Grade stepped in. And the world is a better place because of it.

Eventually, Grade shifted his focus to movies, leading both to hits like “On Golden Pond” and flops like “Raise the Titanic.” ITC’s last TV show aired in 1981. But its legacy remains. ITC programs still air on British television, and many of ITC’s best are available on DVD in the U.S.

Not bad for an immigrant boy who grew up in the bad part of town.

Culture Shock 12.14.06: 'Star Trek's' 40th birthday flies past at warp speed

Somehow, the year is almost gone. And yet hardly a word has been said about 2006 marking the 40th anniversary of an American institution.

It was in 1966, by way of the 23rd century, that the starship Enterprise set forth on its storied five-year mission. But four decades later, “Star Trek” has entered turbulent seas, or their outer-space equivalent.

For the first time since 1985, “Star Trek” is absent from both TV and movie screens, unless you count reruns. The only “new” Trek to be had is the 1973 animated series, which made its long-awaited debut on DVD last month, and the original series, returned to syndication with new, high-tech special effects in place of the ’60s-vintage models and matte paintings.

While it’s sad to see Trek’s anniversary pass quietly in the night, the Franchise, as it’s become known, clearly needs a rest. Its decline in quality, starting with the final two seasons of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and reaching rock bottom with “Star Trek: Voyager” and “Enterprise,” made a breather inevitable. Simply put, the creative team in charge of the Franchise at the bitter end had nothing left.

“Star Trek” had gotten away from the original vision of creator Gene Roddenberry and producer Gene L. Coon. And the attempt to recapture some of that frontier spirit during the last season of “Enterprise” couldn’t overcome that show’s dull, backward-looking premise. Prequels, by definition, don’t boldly go where no man has gone before.

The next “Star Trek” film, reportedly planned for 2008, is also rumored to be a prequel. If so, Trek’s keepers haven’t learned their lesson yet.

The original “Star Trek” was inspirational. Literally. You don’t have to look far to find scientists, engineers and astronauts inspired to enter their chosen fields by “Star Trek.”

But who could be inspired by Trek’s recent incarnations? By the time “Enterprise” was canceled, Trek was looking inward, at its own increasingly convoluted past, not outward.

Oddly enough, while “Star Trek” is slowly becoming a parody of itself, many of the people who have long lived in the Franchise’s shadow are finally emerging.

After winning two Emmy Awards for his portrayal of “Boston Legal” attorney Denny Crane, it’s safe to say that William Shatner has found a role to finally rival, if not eclipse, Capt. James T. Kirk. Leonard Nimoy has left behind Mr. Spock and found a new calling as a photographer, mostly photographing nude women, which is nice work if you can get it. Even George Takei, better known as Lt. Sulu, has moved on, recently taking a supporting role on the hit NBC series “Heroes.”

Sure, lots of “Star Trek” fans, too many in fact, will fawn all over anything bearing the Trek logo.

But those of us who really care about Roddenberry’s creation deserve better. And we’re willing to wait for it. No “Star Trek” at all is better than Trek in name only.

Still, the lack of recognition on Trek’s 40th anniversary is almost shameful. You can be sure that George Lucas won’t let 2007 pass without everyone on the planet knowing that it’s the 30th anniversary of “Star Wars.” And, if anything, the “Star Wars” franchise is even more tarnished than the Trek franchise.

What was I just saying about prequels being a bad idea?