A video narcotic is causing people to leave their TVs tuned to Big Time Television twenty-four hours a day.

In the near future, when TVs can't be shut off and ratings are all that matter, investigative reporter Edison Carter and his computer-generated alter ego Max Headroom battle to keep the "blank" generation informed. In the opener, Carter stumbles across his own network's cover-up of a sometimes deadly new form of TV advertising called "blipverts".

Rival Network 66 attempts to defeat Network 23 in a ratings-based election by introducing a ""watch while you sleep"" device into its programming to cause people to leave their TV sets on all night.

Network 23 censors go a step too far when they try to shut down a secret school in the fringes, because it's using pirated Network 23 instructional programming.

As the ""blanks"" -- undesirables with no computer records -- are rounded up and arrested, the networks face permanent cancellation by hackers who threaten to crash the city's entire computer system if their companions aren't released.

Some shady entrepreneurs are stealing people's dreams and selling them to the highest bidders. Edison goes undercover to expose their lethal business.

Breughel and Mahler are stealing live bodies from the Fringes and selling them to Nightingales Body Bank. The wealthy Plantaganet wants pituitarys from the bodies for an operation which could save his aging mother. While Carter races to save a Fringer girl's life, Cheviot is more concerned that Max is offending Network 23's biggest sponsor, ZikZak, who have decided to buy him.

In the middle of a global ratings sweep programmer packager Frank Braddock tries to sell Network 23 a package covering the activities of a terrorist group, the White Brigade. Edison and Murray become suspicious when Breakthru TV, who have bought the package, start broadcasting terrorist bombings as soon as they occur.

Zik-Zak introduces Neurostim, a device to directly stimulate the brain and bypass the need to use television for advertising.

Carter is accused of credit fraud and becomes a fugitive after delving into the hostile takeover of Security Systems, the world's most powerful corporation.

Edison Carter is on the trail of some rather dark people who are stealing babies from the baby pods where they are grown while Bryce carefully considers working for Grossberg and channel 66.

The Vu-Age Church is running a phony resurrection service, claiming to be able to store cortical scans of its members and keep them on-line for the day when cloning is perfected and their personalities can be placed in new bodies. Edison is reluctant to pursue the story because Vu- Age's leading televangelist, Vanna Smith, is an old flame.

Network 23 becomes the victim of signal zipping - illegal interruption of their satellite feed. When Bryce tracks the zipping to Big Time Television, Reg is arrested and sent for trial by gameshow on ""You the Jury"". Meanwhile Edison and Theora trace the real zippers to the Academy of Computer Sciences, and Bryce's old schoolfriends.

Theora goes AWOL when she learns her estranged brother is involved in the brutal and dangerous ""sport"" of raking, which the promoters are trying to have legalized and televised.