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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.