I recently concluded my brief tour of the classic, nay original cyberpunk series Max Headroom. The brevity of which had nothing everything to do with the Digital Archive Project preserving this show in varying degrees of quality, and my media player only being able to handle but a few of them.
Of course, it’s just been released on DVD – so that should by rights now disappear – and I’ll be obey the Golden Rule and buying myself a copy (or asking Santa to sort that out… either way). (Despite this collection not including the original UK movie; which spawned the series and is far superior.)
These past few weeks have also seen me re-watching, for the first time since it was broadcast, the seminal bio- and cyberpunk series, Dark Angel.
By comparing and contrasting these two shows some interesting observations can be made about how the Future is depicted in an SF series. Some lessons to learn can be drawn and some points to focus on highlighted.
But first, a quick run down for the uninitiated…
The Set Up: Two Cyberpunk Futures
Max Headroom is set in a world where everyone is glued to their televisions; in fact it’s illegal for them to have an off-switch. It’s the tale of Edison Carter, top news reporter for the highest rating network: Network 23. While escaping from some punks intent on killing him – and thus preventing from broadcast a particularly controversial story – he collided into a boom gate. Nearly dead, the last thing he saw was the words: Max Headroom.
Restored from a body bank, his brain is scanned by the young computer genius Bryce… the AI “Max Headroom” was born.
The show explores this world, usually through a story Edison is working on, with a little help from Max – who can appear on any TV screen – and his controller Theora, who can relay him information through his camera and guide him around (much like the Operators in The Matrix).
Dark Angel is the story of Max Guevara. Created in a secret military base, bred and trained to be the perfect soldier. Now hiding out and working as a bike messenger in post-apocalyptic Seattle, she tries to find her fellow escapees, further understand just what she is and evade the evil government agents who are constantly trying to capture or kill her.
Commonalities & Contrasts
Both these TV series are depicting a projected future; an extrapolation based on the then-present.
Max Headroom screened in the mid-80s. It is very much a projection of Thatcherite England (for the UK movie) and its compatriot, for the TV series, Reganite America. It is ambiguously set “20 MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE”, as each movie is subtitled and as each episode of the TV series is introduced.
Dark Angel, on the other hand, commenced screening in 2000 and is quite explicitly set in 2019. It refers back to the events of 2009; primarily involving Max and her teammates’ (part of the X-5 series) escape from the secret Manticore program.
What these two science-fictional universe most strongly share is their urban setting. A city divided into sectors. A city broken. A once functional civilisation, post-Collapse.
Citizens hustling in makeshift markets. Burnt out cars left abandoned on the roadside.
People gathered around stacks of TVs in a ruined landscape.
The rebels of Max Headroom‘s world are the Blanks. Punk kids, subversives and alternative types that want out of the system, erasing themselves the central computers.
By contrast, in that other Max’s world, people are struggling to be re-inserted into the system. Especially those requiring or owed Government benefits. One episode features the rebel group S1W raiding a Veteran’s office; seizing control of its computer and entering in their data – which was being stalled by officials demanding bribes.
This is just one of the aspects of the Surveillance State that these two universes examine.
The Setting & Depiction of the Future
It’s the depiction of the Future that instantly dates Max Headroom on watching it today.
Using then cutting-edge technology, the poorly rendered – by contemporary standards – character of Max Headroom could probably be out-done today by a talented child.
The Controller’s computers display everything in wire-frame, or is otherwise simply rendered.
There is no Internet, which existed then so could have been used, but was then a purely Military and Academic technology.
Remember though, War Games screened several years earlier.
Instead, all hacking was of broadcast signals. Yet, as Annalee on io9 shows, it also remains stunningly prophetic especially for her.
The dystopia is almost purely social. A world of “zombies” addicted to their televisions and fast food. A Consumer Nightmare! It’s explicitly stated in one episode that nothing new is built anymore, everything is recycled. Nearly all creativity is gone, it’s a world in a race to the bottom. The only new sports are descents into further brutality and barbarism; people demanding the death of the competitors.
Yet an active space program is one thing that is referred to. Something that – with a then brand new Space Shuttle fleet – was clearly considered to be an inevitable feature of the near future. This was the era of Reagan’s Star Wars program. Space was the place (for the military especially).
One of the few technological innovations shown is the baby “grobag”. Bringing a fetus to term inside a nutrient bag, with some degree of control of its features; gender for example. This is pitched as perfect for the upwardly mobile couple, wanting an instant family; ie Yuppies, scorn/native of the 80s.
And, of course, the famous Blipverts… advertisements with information so compressed that they caused some people to explode on viewing them.
It’s also far from an environmental utopia. Rubbish pollutes the streets that aren’t already reduced to rubble. Smog the skies. Edison travels everywhere not in a flying car, but in a helicopter.
In short, few people would want to live in the world of Max Headroom.
—
Dark Angel‘s setting is pure post-Apocalypse, but of the Information Economy variety. In the world it takes place in the United States has suffered an EMP bomb attack that has wiped the country’s computers, taking them back to a new Dark Age (much like the end of Escape from LA).
Its broken world is more believable, especially as the US still teeters on the edge of another economic depression.
One my favourite lines in the show is Max’s narration in the pilot that:
“they call this a New Depression, but no one seems that depressed to me…”
Progress is shown to be still occurring outside the US.
The Steelheads – the most cyberpunk element of the Dark Angel universe, a subculture of body-mod enthusiasts – import a cyborg arm from (of course) Japan, for instance.
With that millennial focus on genetic engineering – something we’re still calling the NextBigThing, 10 years later – the transgenic super-soldiers are the main objects of Futurity. They are depicted using sped-up film and standard fight choreography in a way that doesn’t really horribly date the show at all; especially when compared to that mid-1970s future-human show, The Six Million Dollar Man.
One thing that does date the show is its title sequence (even worse in season2). Trim that down in a post-Lost style and you could easily screen this alongside Dollhouse.
It can be argued that recent events make it even more contemporary. Remember, this first screened pre-9/11. A 21stC state crippled by a terrorist attack was still pure speculation. By placing it in a post-Apocalypse, its use of contemporary technology doesn’t age it at all; it makes sense. Society is patched together from whatever functioning tech has survived. And what innovation that does take place appears to be driven purely by military or security needs.
The sweet exoskeleton Logan ends up with is explicitly said to have been salvaged from a warehouse. Despite them being rare at the the time, a few LCD monitors (vs the then standard CRT) appear.
No smart-phones obviously, just the occasional “dumb” mobile phone.
It, like Hackers, uses pagers as the main means of mobile communications. But, again, this is easily rationalized.
Perhaps the main thing to date it is its signature use of barcode tattoos; another key cyberpunk signifier of a future past.
Extrapolating from today, if we wanted code humans like objects we’d use RFID chips. Or just be constantly tracked through an ever more inescapable CCTV network via facial and gait recognition and the constant data shadow our devices make.
Judging by the number of people that did go out and get barcode tattoos though, a lot of people would appear to be happy to live in the world of the Dark Angel.
Lessons for Conjuring a Future
Focusing on the positives from both shows we can now draw some conclusions on the some of the best ways to depict a believable future.
Don’t make too linear a projection of technology. Project, but allow a bit of drift and some imagination. As Annalee points out, Max Headroom predicted much of the state of today. It did so by imagining the social and cultural implications of the technology of the time. This is science-fiction at its best. Not what does the Future look like, but also how does it feel? What problems does technological change solve? What new ones does it create? This can be the source of drama.
The further you extrapolate ahead, the less the technology of the present should appear. The Fountain‘s spaceship is possibly the best Clarkean futuretech-as-magic I have seen in recent TV or film. It’s just a guy sitting by a tree in a giant bubble floating through space. Brilliant!
Be wary of including that Future which seems most imminent. Max Headroom alluding to a functional space program is a piece of the future lost. Largely due to the Challenger disaster, but also the collapse of the Soviet Union took out the race from space. Two events nobody in that writing room would ever have reasonably expected.
The year 2000 was the era of the DotBoom at its peak; a linear projection for there would’ve been of a fully wired world. Yet it’s exactly its post-Apocalyptic setting that keeps Dark Angel contemporary.
What this also does mean though is to avoid the Singularity. Not because it’s un-writeable, but because… let’s face it, with reasonable historical knowledge about humanity’s twists and turns, it’s really not that probable. Something else will almost certainly happen in the interim to surprise us.
A sit-com about a person and their sentient appliances does have its appeal; but it’s also basically The Jetsons.
Dark Angel teaches us to cheat. Hide the Objects of Futurity inside Objects of the Present as much as possible. The X-5‘s are designed to pass among humanity, so they require little fancy make-up or props to depict, just a talented actor and some good costuming.
—
How would I pitch a truly Futuristic series, a show that would rock my socks off? I have some ideas. It may look something like L5, which I’m very impressed with so far.
To begin with though, it’s important to identity what does and doesn’t work (and holds true over time) in other shows. This post is part of that process.
The Committee to Nuke Elysium 
The ancestor of the Operator archetype, and a show barely remembered, was Search (shown in the UK as, I seem to recall, Probe Control) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068131/
The set-up was:
""World Securities", an international high-tech private investigation company, employs field operatives who are aided by implanted audio receivers and who carry tiny cameras and telemetry units which can be attached to tie tacks or rings. Each episode featured one of three (O'Brian, Franciosa, McClure) agents on a particular investigation, which usually had political elements. Meredith played the "director" of the investigations, as leader of the expert team who remained at headquarters monitoring and providing the agent with intelligence. Other experts included a computer hacker (such as they were portrayed in the early 70's), someone fluent as a translator in several languages, and a doctor"
So – that's basically Global Frequency, the security firm.
This show aired in 1972.
LikeLike
Great job with the blog, I’ve been stopping by here for quite some time, just wanted to let you know!
LikeLike
Heya! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any trouble with hackers? My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing many months of hard work due to no backup. Do you have any methods to prevent hackers?
LikeLike
Appreciate you for sharing these kinds of wonderful threads. In addition, the optimal travel in addition to medical insurance plan can often relieve those concerns that come with vacationing abroad. A new medical crisis can in the near future become very expensive and that’s sure to quickly place a financial stress on the family finances. Putting in place the great travel insurance package prior to setting off is worth the time and effort. Thanks
LikeLike
No motion,[url=http://www.louisvuittonoutlet-bags.com]louis vuitton outlet[/url]several foreigners say with a quite superior, and this is the U.s. the world’s fitness [url=http://www.louisvuittonoutlet-bags.com]louis vuitton bags[/url]center is extremely suggested ladies who just want to lose weight recipe urgently.
Solutions: A total of [url=http://www.louisvuittonoutlet-bags.com]LV handbags[/url]twelve days.
The first three days: vegetables and fruits every single day as food each morning to consume fruits, veggies and fruits can consume at noon, at night to try to eat greens (not the oil and salt Oh), the bodyweight limitation.
4-6 days: eat milk and yogurt (never get there preservatives, not only doesn’t enable body weight loss will raise Xiao Dudu), you can consume, the weight limitation.
The very last[url=http://www.louisvuittonoutlet-bags.com]louis vuitton handbags[/url] 6 days: combined vegetables, fruit and milk and yogurt to consume, the body weight limitation.
Also, it is possible to check out what fat loss merchandise. Preference of excess fat reduction [url=http://www.louisvuittonoutlet-bags.com]LV outlet[/url]products and services, most consumers will need to go for merchandise are perfectly obtained Oh, and month-to-month sales in one thousand or even more, and make sure you pick the green and nutritious, no side effects of excess weight loss solutions, I introduce you to a site: 1234jf @ com (@ for into..) [url=http://www.louisvuittonoutlet-bags.com]lv wallet[/url]You can actually appearance inside of, it happens to be a excess fat loss item record, sorting out the bodyweight reduction products ranked Taobao, Taobao collection of your most effective weight-loss solutions, high-quality and evaluation in the greatest phrase of mouth, this top-selling weight-loss medicine health and fitness products and solutions. Wish helpful to you, I wish you an effective excess fat reduction.
LikeLike
Nice Blog! I am getting sick and tired of reading through mindless blog posts so I appreciate your well thought out conversation. I just wish there were more educated responses. Thanks again!
LikeLike
Easily, the post is really the greatest on this laudable topic. I concur with your conclusions and will thirstily watch forward to your future updates. Saying cheers will not just be sufficient, for the brilliant c lucidity in your writing. I will instantly grab your rss feed to stay privy of any updates. Solid work and much success in your business enterprise!
LikeLike
Kuckuck! Sie besitzen hier einen einzigartigen Blog! Mich erfreut gerade das Layout sowie die Farbintensität! Ich wünsche alles Gute! Ach ja: Möglicherweise magst Du auch mal auf meiner Seite über Yohimbin HCL oder Yohimbe reinschauen? Yohimbin steigert die Verbrennung von Körperfett und zählt zu den meist verkauften Fatburner Stacks! MfG, Christian R. Wenger
LikeLike
I’ve been reading your entries during my morning holiday, and I should admit the whole article has been very enlightening and really well written. I assumed I’d help you realize that for a few reason why this weblog does now not view neatly in Web Explorer 8. I want Microsoft could prevent converting their software. I have a question for you. Might you mind exchanging blog roll links? That will be actually neat!
LikeLike
Great post. I appreciate you taking the time to write this. I bookmarked your blog. Thanks 🙂
LikeLike
Hallo! Sie hosten hier einen schönen Weblog! Mir gefällt gerade das Layout sowie die Farben! Alles Gute! P.S. Möglicherweise magst Du auch ein mal auf meiner Webpage rund um Yohimbine HCL und Yohimbe vorbeischauen? Yohimbine HCL erhöht die Fettverbrennung und zählt zu den wirkungsvollsten Fatburner Produkten! Bis dann, Manuel P. Oberste
LikeLike
Thanks for the post!
LikeLike
Guten Tag! Schöner Newsblog! Komm auch bitte mal auf meine Seite Fatburner Kapseln wirken unterstützend beim ultra Abbau von Körperfettdepots! Besten Dank!
LikeLike
hanks for that awesome posting. It saved MUCH time.
LikeLike
Servus! Schöner Blogg! Infopage Fatburner Kapseln unterstützen beim raschen Abbau von Fettdepots! Danke!
LikeLike
I’m happy to see others taking the initivative and contributing to the online community. I would like to comment to show my appreciation for your blog as it’s very challenging to do, and many bloggers do not get the appreciation they truely deserve.
LikeLike
Good day, I simply hopped over on your website online by the use of StumbleUpon. Now not something I would generally learn, but I appreciated your feelings none the less. Thanks for making one thing worth reading.
LikeLike
I admire the precious data you be offering for your articles. I will be able to bookmark your weblog and feature my children check up here generally. I’m fairly positive they’ll be told plenty of new stuff here than anybody else!
LikeLike
I image this may well be numerous upon the written content? in spite of this I still consider that it usually is appropriate for virtually any type of matter subject material, as a result of it would incessantly be enjoyable to decide a warm and pleasant face or maybe hear a voice while preliminary landing.
LikeLike
Definitely believe that which you stated. Your favorite reason appeared to be on the web the simplest thing to be aware of. I say to you, I certainly get irked while people consider worries that they plainly don’t know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and also defined out the whole thing without having side-effects , people could take a signal. Will likely be back to get more. Thanks
LikeLike
Fabulous piece,I do believe you’ve definitely designed a web site I have to come back to daily. Keep it up.
LikeLike
Thanks for the post!
LikeLike
Really needed to hear this, thank you.
LikeLike
Good issues?I’d observe that as any person who truly doesn’t write on blogs so much (if truth be told, this can be my first put up), I don’t assume the term ‘lurker’ could be very becoming to a non-posting reader. It’s not your fault in the least , but possibly the blogosphere may get a hold of a greater, non-creepy title for the ninety% people that revel in reading the content material .
LikeLike
Hey, I just started reading your blog – thank you for writing. As an FYI that it’s not displaying properly on the BlackBerry Browser (I have a Pearl). Anyway, I’m now subscribed to your RSS feed on my laptop, so thanks again!
LikeLike
Good day people. As per the Catalog of Human Population (CHP) any individual is really a biomachine and has a program and 3 regulation modes. Inside of a system (a human) these work as modes of self control that work on “automatic”. Being transmitted from the outside, they turn into a perfect management tool.
LikeLike
I’d have to verify with you here. Which is not something I usually do! I get pleasure from studying a post that can make folks think. Also, thanks for allowing me to comment!
LikeLike
I have been reading your entries during my morning break, and I must admit the entire article has been very enlightening and really well written. I believed I might permit you to understand that for a few explanation why this weblog does no longer view neatly in Internet Explorer 8. I wish Microsoft would forestall converting their software. I have a query for you. Would you mind exchanging weblog roll hyperlinks? That would be in point of fact neat!
LikeLike
Hi there can I use some of the insight here in this entrance if I victual a link back to your site?
LikeLike
I thought it was going to be some boring old post, but I’m glad I visited. I will post a link to this page on my blog. I am sure my visitors will find that very useful.
LikeLike
Hi, Skilful postal service, hold responsible you, i like your treatise also!
LikeLike
Hello there,awesome blog posting. Infos are really fascinating and saves me lots of time which I have invest in something else rather than searching posts like this 🙂 Im waiting for more, bye 🙂
LikeLike
I do not understand exactly how I ran across your blog because I had been researching information on Real Estate in Altamonte Springs, FL, but anyway, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it, keep it up!
LikeLike
Hey I’m sorry if this is unrelated, but what kind of theme are you using on this site? Is it custom or can I download it somewhere?
LikeLike
Fantastic post, I hope you update shortly 🙂
LikeLike
Great article! I really love the second paragraph, I know exactly what you mean! This site is great thanks again!
LikeLike
Woah this is just an insane amount of info, must of taken ages to compile so cheers so much for just sharing it with all of us. If your ever in any need of related info, perhaps a bit of coaching, seduction techniques or just general tips, just check out my own site!
LikeLike
great post! i’m bookmarking this!
LikeLike
I dont even know what to say. That’s excellent!
LikeLike
Thank you for the good writeup. It actually used to be a amusement account it. Look complicated to more introduced agreeable from you! However, how can we communicate?
LikeLike
Sweet blog! I found it while searching on Yahoo News. Do you have any tips on how to get listed in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there! Cheers
LikeLike
There is perceptibly a bundle to know about this. I suppose you made various nice points in features also.
LikeLike
I think that is a fascinating aspect, it made me suppose a bit. Thank you for sparking my pondering cap. Occasionally I am getting so much in a rut that I just feel like a record.
LikeLike
Seriously can I reference some of the insight uncovered in this entry if I reference you along with a link back to your website?
LikeLike
This is Great. So much good, useful and well written information and entertaining too! I appreciate the time you have spent on this. It is a big help for me. – Thank you!
LikeLike
Hey man , thanks 4 writing but this post is hard to read when using Firefox it is doubled up.
LikeLike
Howdy! Do you know if they make any plugins to assist with SEO? I’m trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I’m not seeing very good gains. If you know of any please share. Many thanks!
LikeLike
Wonderfull competition. Thanks for the chance!
LikeLike
Hi! I found your blog on AOL.It’s really comprehensive and it helped me a lot. Continue the good work!
LikeLike
Whatˇs Happening i’m new to this, I stumbled upon this I have found It absolutely useful and it has aided me out loads. I hope to contribute & aid different customers like its aided me. Good job.
LikeLike