Time Trax - Zurück in die Zukunft

It is rare that I find myself looking forward to watching re-run TV programs, "Time Trax" is one of those interesting shows that I keep tuning in for on the SciFi Channel.

Darien Lambert (Dale Midkiff) is a policeman from the future (25th Century or so) who must travel back in time (usually the present) to find and send back to his time "criminals" who have also time travelled and are usually endangering the current time's inhabitants with advanced devices ("of EVIL").

Darien is assisted by his holographic computer "Selma" (smartly played by Elizabeth Alexander) who appears from his rather futuristic credit card / weapon / transporter.

This show is pure fantasy and, at times, corny, but Dale Midkiff makes his character impressively believable.

As a kid I remember watching, I'm 32 now and am pretty sure it's atleast a little responsible for the great movie imagination I have today!

I've been reading everyone's comments on the show. I thought it was a fun show with good potential (I didn't realize it was filmed in Australia as one person pointed out). To me, admittedly, it had elements of Quantum Leap (the time travel to the past to set things right aspect).

However, I thought they did a decent job with an interesting premise - have it take place 200 years in the future, have the evil genius (Dr. Sahmbi) create a time travel apparatus to send criminals and himself into the past where law enforcement isn't as advanced, have the good guy (Capt. Lambert) be forced to pursue him into the past when his love is killed, have him take an advanced computer/hologram with him to help out (even the hologram aspect is reminiscent of Quantum Leap), and have him not able to return home until he's caught the 100 criminals and Sahmbi and sent them all back.

Where I think the show jumped the shark was two things. First - having the big confrontation between Lambert and Sahmbi happen too soon. The episode where they became trapped in an underground cavern and Sahmbi used a modified version of the TRAX substance (normally used to send people back to the future) on Darien in order to brainwash him, turn him against Selma, and turn him onto Sahmbi's side. That episode was VERY well done but should have been saved as the series finale episode, where they have the final big confrontation. A slight rewriting of the episode's ending and it would have been perfect as a series finale. By doing that episode that soon, they played their trump card too soon so of course the rest of the series would be an anti-climax.

The second jump the shark moment to me was when they started toying with the idea of Selma loving Darien and vice versa. While it was cute and the episodes that dealt with this "subtext" were funny, they did constitute a jump the shark moment in the series. I mean, Selma didn't even have a physical female form - she was a female hologram housed inside a computer fashioned as a credit card, for crying out loud. The episode where Elizabeth Alexander did a dual role as Selma and as Darien's mother and it was revealed that Selma loved Darien was, again, a cute and funny moment to watch but really!

And after that, the series started playing with the idea that there were feelings between the two. The episode where Darien was undercover with his female agent friend as a married couple and the agent ended up brainwashed, Selma told Darien to take her to the bedroom (so she could emit some rays to determine the brainwashing patterns). However, the way the scene was done was obviously meant to be a cute subtext moment.

Those were the moments that I thought the show lost its focus. Otherwise, Time Trax was a decent show.

Time Trax - OK, here's the deal: a cop from the future (Darien Lambert) travels back in time to track down roughly 200 escaped fugitives from his time and to settle the score with the time machine's creator, who just happened to have killed off the only woman the cop loved for a long time. Simple, right?

Well, yes. That was basically the problem - from a theatrical point of view. Sure, the show's writers worked hard at kicking in some complications. For example, the cop happens to be an ethnic minority in the future, a "blanco," but that seats him in the majority here. They give him disguised weaponry: namely, his futuristic Star-Trek-in-a-box computer hologram projector and historical archive widget and a nifty non-lethal gun formed to look like a credit card and car-alarm. However, he loses this things constantly - just multiply the number of times you've forgotten where to put your keys by like 1 million, and that's about par for the show. In addition, either the convicts he's chasing will sniff them out, or some plucky 20th century kid will inevitably treat them like the mundane objects they're made to resemble.

Overall, this was not enough to give the show much "drawing power." As noted above, these are plot devices and not necessarily related to developing the character.

Having said that, I must say that this was still one of my favorite shows to watch between the ages of 13-14; like MacGyver or the A-Team, this show had a very dynamic episode-to-episode style with no complicated soap opera sagas to slow down the enjoyment - things were always wrapped up neatly in about an hour.

To speak plainly: the show's main export is just plain fun. It's fun to watch the time-displaced cop rediscover everything about the 20th century that we take for granted (like junk food, boxing [which is outlawed in his time but not any other martial art - go figure], amusement parks, and the fact that here he's not a minority at all (which is something one commenter already hit on - they could have done a LOT more with - if the goal had been character development). It's also fun to watch him struggle with being two hundred years in his own past where his favorite restaurant has only one location and the chef hasn't figured out the signature recipe yet, where the Chicago Cubs suck even though they're a dynasty 200 years from now [which is a shame - it really only took about 8-9 years for the Cubs to make that leap, not 200], and he struggles with the idea that he may never go home, though that might not be bad considering he's found the cute ancestor of his former love.

All of this didn't make the show great per se, but it did make the show special. In many ways it was akin to the radio shows of old, like the Shadow, where the contrived plots and weak villains are less important than the overall aesthetic that the show inspires. It was the genuine sense of wonder and amusement from rediscovering the present that helped the audiences simmer in Darien's nostalgia and homesickness.

Fans of sci-fi will appreciate the techno-widgets and special effects for what they are - a means of conveying the storyline with dazzling and emotional spectacle; however, if you're looking for spectacular drama, you've come to the wrong place. Here's my advice: don't go to the circus and expect to sit next to Hamlet, but if you do go, grab some cotton candy, ask a clown to teach you to juggle, pet the lions, and flirt with as many cute acrobats as you can see because you'll enjoy going a whole lot more.

I watched this show during the original run, which was when I was in my early teens. I remember thoroughly enjoying it and thinking it was one of the better shows on television. Years later, as an adult, I would see this late one night. I was suffering from nostalgia and decided to kick back and enjoy it one more time. I couldn't bear to watch it! I realized the acting, scripts, and direction.

Granted, the premise was definitely fresh for its time. It could have worked, and if tuned properly and all the problems fixed, could possibly be brought back today. The networks need to remember that the public as a whole really does not mind having to think while watching a program. Mindless fodder is not going to placate those of us who need mental and intellectual stimulation.