George R.R. Martin's First Hollywood Disappointment Came From An '80s Sci-Fi Classic

The history of Hollywood is overflowing with stories of missed opportunities and bitter compromises. Out of all creatives, by far the most common victim of doing a lot of work that ultimately goes nowhere is the screenwriter. To wit: the very existence of such a thing as a script doctor indicates that writers in film and television are incredibly disposable, interchangeable, and expendable. Sure, there are writers who reach a level of craft, respect, and/or fame who can afford to be precious about their work and are generally able to ensure its integrity. However, even these folks likely had to endure the indignity of their work being revised or wholly discarded early in their career.

That's precisely the case with George R.R. Martin. Although Martin became a full-time author in the late '70s, building a robust and now-famous career in literature thanks primarily to the "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels, there was a period during the 1980s where he made a go of being a professional film and television screenwriter. He was lucky enough to land a gig on the first "Twilight Zone" revival series, which was by and large a happy experience for him. As Martin said in a blog post from 2017: "I wrote five scripts, every one of which was greenlit, produced, and telecast." That good luck was not to last, sadly, as Martin went on to contribute to the classic (and unfortunately short-lived) "Max Headroom" series, which ran for two seasons between March 1987 and May 1988. Martin wrote an episode entitled "Xmas" which never ended up getting shot. It was a bummer for him personally, and it's also a shame for fans of his and "Max Headroom" alike, as the episode sounds pretty great.

The history of Max Headroom is a long and bizarre one that's too complex to delve into here. Suffice to say that, as portrayed by actor Matt Frewer in all incarnations, Max was all at once a fictional character, an American pop culture figure, an English counter-culture icon and the titular role in an underrated serialized TV show for ABC. When it comes to that latter version, the satiric tone that "Max Headroom" found its way into felt like a sort of immunity for the series, as Frewer explained in a 2015 oral history:

"At the time we thought we were the coolest kids on the block, [...] and they would never take us off the air. So we were kind of cockily trying to get away with things, slipping things past the censors and then just kind of boldly holding our middle finger up to the whole business."

Yet a combination of playing so fast and loose with the industry, a trend of writers turning scripts in late, and scheduling issues caused the series to speed toward cancellation. That hammer unfortunately came down just before George R.R. Martin's episode, "Xmas," was to be produced. As Martin recalled on his blog, this was his first encounter with showbiz shenanigans thwarting his creative dreams:

"'Xmas,' written in 1987, was actually the first time in my short television career that I tasted the disappointment that so many screenwriters come to know so well. I had been writing for television for less than two years, after all, and up to "Xmas," I'd had a charmed career. [...] With 'Xmas,' I went all the way, and the script had been delivered and slated, scheduled... only to have the show cancelled abruptly."

Even if George R.R. Martin hadn't gone on to write the novels which inspired "Game of Thrones" and its subsequent spin-off series, the loss of his episode "Xmas" for "Max Headroom" would still be a drag, based on the description given by series writer Michael Cassutt. As Cassutt elaborated in The Verge's oral history:

"'What is a commercial holiday like in a world that makes a virtue of just rampant commercialism?' We came up with the holiday, 'Xmas,' in which everybody gathers around the TV and home shops. The person in the family or the community that home shops the most is the one who celebrates Xmas the best."

30 years after writing the script for "Xmas," Martin himself helped mount a staged reading of the script as part of a marathon event celebrating the series in 2017. As he said on his blog, the script ended up being a resounding success for attendees:

"After thirty years, I was not at all sure how well my old script would hold up... especially with an audience of Max Headroom fanatics, many of whom had just sat through an entire week of Max, watching every one of the produced episodes. 'Max Headroom' was a really smart show, with some fine writing... tough acts to follow. But most of the viewers seemed to think 'Xmas' was just as good as what had gone before, which gratified me no end."

While we may never get to see Martin's "Xmas" properly, its subject matter feels as eerily prescient as the rest of "Max Headroom." That's the genius of "Max" and Martin, and the success of both is proof that, despite setbacks, good work always finds a way.