Max Headroom is a British-produced American satirical science fiction television series by Chrysalis Visual Programming and Lakeside Productions for Lorimar-Telepictures that aired in the United States on ABC from March 1987 to May 1988. The series was based on the Channel 4 British TV pilot produced by Chrysalis, Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future. The series is often mistaken as an American-produced show due to the setting and its use of an almost entirely US cast along with being broadcast in the USA on the ABC network. Cinemax aired the UK pilot followed by a six-week run of highlights from The Max Headroom Show, a music video show where Headroom appears between music videos. ABC took an interest in the pilot and asked Chrysalis/Lakeside to produce the series for US audiences.

The show went into production in late 1986 and ran for six episodes in the first season with eight being produced in season two.

Matt Travis is good-looking, popular, and his school’s best competitive swimmer, so everyone is shocked when he inexplicably commits suicide. As the following year unfolds, each member of his family struggles to recover from the tragedy with mixed results.

Good-natured astronomer Sam is devastated when the love of his life, Linda, leaves him for a suave Frenchman named Anton. He therefore does what every other normal dumpee would do; go to New York and set up home in the abandoned building opposite his ex-girlfriend’s apartment, intent on winning her back and waiting until she decides to leave her current lover.

In the Fall of 1940, the entire population of Friar, New Hampshire walked together up a winding mountain trail and into the wilderness. Without warning, they left behind everything: their homes, their clothes, and their money. The only clue where they went was a single word etched into stone near the forest’s edge: YELLOWBRICKROAD.