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When one looks in the box, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the cat.

Reactor

He’s b-b-back! (Sorry, but there’s no avoiding it.) The ’80s pop culture icon Max Headroom is returning to a TV screen near you thanks to AMC Networks and Halt and Catch Fire creator co-Christopher Cantwell, who apparently isn’t done with ideas from the 1980s just yet.

Matt Frewer will return as the perpetually glitching AI TV personality for this new series, which is produced by Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah.

If you did not spend a lot of time in front of a television in the ’80s, Max Headroom was kind of confusing: Why is the robot head on the cover of Newsweek? But the satirical talk show host character was the star of a TV movie (1985’s Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future), host of a music video show, the face of New Coke, and generally just an unavoidable part of that specific moment in time. No one has forgotten Max Headroom. As Variety notes, he’s referenced in everything from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to a Selena Gomez video. (Editor’s note: To FARSCAPE, sorry, this is important to me.)

In the years since he first played Max Headroom, Matt Frewer has established himself as a powerhouse character actor; personally I can only see him as Orphan Black‘s creepy Dr. Leekie, but he’s been in the 1984 The Stand, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Falling Skies, The Librarians, Eureka, Fear the Walking Dead, and The Magicians, while also providing voices for a ton of animated shows.

No details or further casting have been announced for the new Max Headroom drama series.


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Molly Templeton

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Molly Templeton has been a bookseller, an alt-weekly editor, and assistant managing editor of Tor.com, among other things. She now lives and writes in Oregon, and spends as much time as possible in the woods.
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