Time Trax
Encyclopedia
Time Trax was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

/Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n co-produced science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 television series that first aired in 1993. A police officer, sent through time into the past, has to track down and return convicted criminals who have escaped prison in the future. This was the last new production from Lorimar Television.

Premise

In the year 2193, over a hundred criminals became fugitives of law enforcement by travelling back in time two hundred years, using a time machine
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...

 called Trax. Darien Lambert (Dale Midkiff
Dale Midkiff
Dale Alan Midkiff is an American actor.-Early life:Midkiff was born in Chance, Maryland, the son of Joyce and Thomas Midkiff. He attended Edgewood High School near Baltimore. His first acting experience came playing Jack in a production of Jack and the Beanstalk for a local children's theater. His...

) was a police detective of that period who was sent back to 1993 in order to apprehend as many of the fugitives as possible. He was assisted by the Specified Encapsulated Limitless Memory Archive, or SELMA (Elizabeth Alexander), an extremely small but very powerful computer (described as equivalent to a mainframe
Mainframe computer
Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...

) disguised for the mission as an AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

 MasterCard
MasterCard
Mastercard Incorporated or MasterCard Worldwide is an American multinational financial services corporation with its headquarters in the MasterCard International Global Headquarters, Purchase, Harrison, New York, United States...

 and communicated through a holographic
Holography
Holography is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that when an imaging system is placed in the reconstructed beam, an image of the object will be seen even when the object is no longer present...

 interface which took the visual form of a prim British nanny. Lambert was also equipped with an MPPT (Micro-Pellet Projection Tube) disguised as a keyless car alarm remote, which could stun the target or engulf the target in an energy field, rendering her or him transportable to the future. This process, executed by SELMA, incorporated a transmission sequence to send the criminal on his way. Lambert's biggest enemy was Dr. Mordecai Sahmbi (Peter Donat
Peter Donat
Peter Donat is a Canadian-American actor known for his roles in American television.-Early life:Donat was born Pierre Collingwood Donat in Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada, the son of Marie and Philip Ernst Donat, a landscape gardener. His uncle was British actor Robert Donat...

), who was responsible for sending the fugitives to 1993, and who tried several times to kill him.

Captain Lambert, fearing the possible consequences of altering the timeline, did not actively attempt to interfere with the natural flow of history, although he frequently left messages for his colleagues in 2193 (via the 'personals' sections of assorted newspapers). The series made occasional allusions to a theory of parallel timelines as a way of skirting the issue of temporal paradox, implying that the time travellers went into an alternate past so that their actions there had no effect on the 2193 "present". However, there was no overt evidence that this was the case; indeed, the fact that Lambert was able to leave messages for his coworkers to find in 2193 would seem to indicate otherwise.

Opening narration

Season 1:
"It began in the future. A scientist turning to evil, a time machine called TRAX, criminals who vanish and a lawman with a mission. He has one weapon and a computer named SELMA."

SELMA: Good Morning, Captain Lambert.

"With them he will travel to a time more innocent than his own. Now he is among us. A special breed of man, a hunter, travelling through our world searching for fugitives from his own, knowing he can not go home until he has found them all. His name is Darien Lambert and this is his story."

Season 2:
"It began in the future. A time machine called TRAX, criminals who vanish, and a lawman who must pursue into the past. Now he is among us, a special breed of man. He has one weapon and a computer called Selma. With her, he will travel through our world, searching for fugitives from his own, knowing he cannot go home until he has found them all. His name is Darien Lambert and this is his story."

Darien Lambert

~ Captain, Fugitive Retrieval Section

Pre-Series (pilot narration)

He was born on August 17, 2160, 8:05 AM, Monday. He was left at the Bradwell orphanage (#35 "Mother"). Unclaimed by his birth parents; he was raised in Enclave I-6 Middle City, the area known long before as Chicago Land
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. As was the custom, he was allowed to choose his own name. He chose Darien, hero of the Just War of 2129, and Lambert, the surname of the woman who bore him; who he called mother even though all he had of her was her photograph.

He grew up a normal child of his times: IQ
Intelligence quotient
An intelligence quotient, or IQ, is a score derived from one of several different standardized tests designed to assess intelligence. When modern IQ tests are constructed, the mean score within an age group is set to 100 and the standard deviation to 15...

 204, Speed Memorization rate 1.2 pages per second (slightly above average). He was a competent athlete. His best speed for the 100 meters was 8.6 seconds, and for the Mile Run - 3 minutes 38 seconds. He wondered how the Olympic Champion could ever have done it twenty seconds faster. His heartbeat was a normal 35 beats per minute. His life expectancy
Life expectancy
Life expectancy is the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is denoted by ex, which means the average number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged x, according to a particular mortality experience...

 - 120 years. His lungs were average, capable of air storage up to six minutes. Beta wave training had given his generation mind control
Mind control
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...

 capabilities unavailable fifty years before his birth. One of these was the ability to slow down the speed of visual images reaching the brain, popularly called "time stalling". It demanded rigorous training.

He was a solitary child; he lived among his memories. He was also a patriot. He admitted this to no one, because it was out of fashion. But he had feelings for his native land, once called the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and knew every detail of her history
History of the United States
The history of the United States traditionally starts with the Declaration of Independence in the year 1776, although its territory was inhabited by Native Americans since prehistoric times and then by European colonists who followed the voyages of Christopher Columbus starting in 1492. The...

. He admired her early Fugitive Retrieval Specialists, the U.S. Marshals, and wondered why in later times so many of her criminals went unpunished. This belief system took him on a career path: The International Police Academy at West Point on Hudson
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...

.

In the same year, Dr. Mordecai Sahmbi of MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 won the Nobel Prize for physics for his theoretical work in the teletransportation
Teleportation
Teleportation is the fictional or imagined process by which matter is instantaneously transferred from one place to another.Teleportation may also refer to:*Quantum teleportation, a method of transmitting quantum data...

 of particle mass. Halfway around the earth, Sahmbi is idolized by the brilliant young prodigy, Elyssa Channing-Knox (Mia Sara). About to be accepted at MIT, she is nine years old. By the time she is 17, she will have become his most gifted student. These two people will change Lambert's life forever.

At West Point, Lambert excels; he learns Mosh-T an occidental improvement of martial arts
Martial arts
Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....

. He becomes expert with the Pellet Projection Tube, the standard police weapon of the day. He graduates first in his class and is commissioned a Detective, Junior Grade. He is a Marshall at last. The years that follow are turbulent to Lambert. He learns the eternal lesson of his trade; a policeman stands alone. Nor is his isolation made easier by being a member of a minority race. [The crowd chants 'blanco'.] It is the 22nd century's most abrasive racial slur. His experiences have made him strong, yet by decade's end, a series of events have begun to shake his confidence.

His arrest record declines sharply. Routine track-downs end in mysterious disappearances. Suspects vanish without a trace. He begins to doubt his ability. Then, one day in the summer of '92 ... (leads into the series)

(Primary Source: Introduction First Episode of "Time Trax")

Family
  • Mother's name is Kathryn (#10 "Treasure of the Ages")
  • Darien says that SELMA looks like the picture that he drew of his mother. (#22 "One on One")
  • Kathryn "Kit" Lambert Logan traveled with her now "ex-husband" who is a fugitive to the past. Darien meets her in episode #35 "Mother"


Aliases
  • Danny Lambertson, Boxer (#08 "The Contender")
  • Donald Lombardi, Police (#09 "Night of the Savage")
  • Darien Lind, Special Investigator of International Thoroughbred Racing Association (#20 "Photo Finish")
  • Dan Longstreet, Reporter (#30 "The Cure")
  • Daniel Lang, Former Police (#37 Split Image)


Misc
  • Lambert is a Chicago Cubs
    Chicago Cubs
    The Chicago Cubs are a professional baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the Central Division of Major League Baseball's National League. They are one of two Major League clubs based in Chicago . The Cubs are also one of the two remaining charter members of the National...

     fan, and during several episodes, wore a vintage 2145 Cubs' hat, which was the last time the Cubs' won the pennant
    1945 World Series
    -Game 1:Wednesday, October 3, 1945 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit, Michigan-Game 2:Thursday, October 4, 1945 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit, Michigan-Game 3:Friday, October 5, 1945 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit, Michigan...

    . (200 years after the actual 1945 pennant)

SELMA

See also Technology: SELMA

Selma was Darien's link to his past (i.e life in our temporal future) Selma was a computer, but a computer that seemed like a real person to Darien most of the time. They fought with one another and worried about each other. By the end of the series, SELMA almost "mothered" Darien and, despite her programming, admitted a deep pride in him. By all appearances the feeling was mutual.

Encountered fugitives

Dr. Mordecai Sahmbi
  • Dr. Mordecai Sahmbi of MIT, won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his theoretical work in the teletransportation of particle mass in the same year that Darien is admitted to the Police Academy at West Point (estimated about 2178). (#1 "Stranger in Time")
  • As a child, Sahmbi's father used to drink and would beat him for going to the library, while his mother went into deep denial. (#22 "One on One")


Charlie "C.L." Burke
  • Committed Treason in 22nd century. (#1 "Stranger in Time")


Sepp Dietrich
  • A violent neo-Nazi racist. Attempted to establish a Fourth Reich
    Fourth Reich
    The Fourth Reich is a term used to describe a theoretical future successor of the Third Reich.-Neo-Nazism:In terms of neo-Nazism, the Fourth Reich is envisioned as featuring Aryan supremacy, anti-Semitism, Lebensraum, aggressive militarism and totalitarianism...

    . Is the only known survivor of more than two doses of TXP, which left him disfigured.

Other characters

Elyssa Channing-Knox
  • Young prodigy, accepted to MIT at age nine (#1 "Stranger in Time")
  • By age seventeen, she is Dr. Sahmbi's most gifted student. (#1 "Stranger in Time")


Annie Knox (Mia Sara)

Fugitive Retrieval Sergeant
  • Worked with Darien Lambert and the Chief (#1 "Stranger in Time") (#3 "To Kill A Billionaire")


Country singer Caitlin Carlisle (Kassie Wesley DePaiva)
  • One of Lambert's favorite singers. (#19 "Beautiful Songbird")
    • His favorite songs are: "Mystery Man," which as it turns out is about him, and "Lofty Pines on Misty Mountains"


Joey Miller
  • Lambert's favorite comedian who turns out to be one of the fugitives. (#39 "The Lottery")


Mike "Bigsy" Biggs
  • Lamberts trusted reporter in several episodes under different aliases

Timeline

  • 1993 June 15 - Darien Lambert arrives in the past
  • 2129 The "Just War"
  • 2142 First Contact - transmission received from the Procardians.
  • 2160 August 17 - Darien Lambert is born
  • 2164 The "War of the Hemispheres"
  • abt. 2169 - Elyssa Channing-Knox is born
  • abt. 2178 - Darien is admitted to the International Police Academy at West Point.
  • abt. 2178 - Dr. Mordicai Sahmbi of MIT, wins Nobel Prize for Physics for his theoretical work in the teletransportation of particle mass.
  • 2193 Lambert jumps to the past

Credits

Created by:
  • Harve Bennett
    Harve Bennett
    Harve Bennett is an American television and film producer and screenwriter.-Early years:...

  • Jeffrey M. Hayes
  • Grant Rosenberg
    Grant Rosenberg
    Grant Rosenberg is a writer and producer who has worked on such television series as XIII-The Series, Fear Itself, Eureka, Masters of Science Fiction, Masters Of Horror, The Outer Limits, and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Prior to moving into writing and producing, he was an...



Regulars:
  • Dale Midkiff
    Dale Midkiff
    Dale Alan Midkiff is an American actor.-Early life:Midkiff was born in Chance, Maryland, the son of Joyce and Thomas Midkiff. He attended Edgewood High School near Baltimore. His first acting experience came playing Jack in a production of Jack and the Beanstalk for a local children's theater. His...

     as Capt. Darien Lambert
  • Elizabeth Alexander as Selma


Recurring characters:
  • Peter Donat
    Peter Donat
    Peter Donat is a Canadian-American actor known for his roles in American television.-Early life:Donat was born Pierre Collingwood Donat in Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada, the son of Marie and Philip Ernst Donat, a landscape gardener. His uncle was British actor Robert Donat...

     as Dr. Mordecai Sahmbi
  • Henry Darrow
    Henry Darrow
    Henry Darrow is a prolific Puerto Rican-American character actor of stage and film. Darrow is probably best remembered for his role as Big John Cannon's teasing brother-in-law, and Buck Cannon's favorite ranch hand, and best friend, Manolito Montoya, in the 1960s television series The High...

     as the Chief
  • Henk Johannes as Sepp Dietrich


Misc.
  • Filmed in and around Brisbane
    Brisbane
    Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

    , Queensland
    Queensland
    Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

    , Australia
    Australia
    Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

    .
  • This is the last series to premiere under the Lorimar Productions
    Lorimar Productions
    Lorimar, later known as Lorimar Television and Lorimar Distribution, was an American television production company that was later a subsidiary of Warner Bros., active from 1969 until 1993...

     name.

Episode list

Season 1
  • 01. 20 January 1993 "A Stranger In Time" - Part 1
  • 02. 20 January 1993 "A Stranger In Time" - Part 2
  • 03. 3 February 1993 "To Kill A Billionaire"
  • 04. 10 February 1993 "Fire and Ice"
  • 05. 17 February 1993 "Showdown"
  • 06. 24 February 1993 "The Prodigy"
  • 07. 3 March 1993 "Death Takes A Holiday"
  • 08. 10 March 1993 "The Contender"
  • 09. 17 March 1993 "Night of The Savage"
  • 10. 31 March 1993 "Treasure of The Ages"
  • 11. 7 April 1993 "The Price of Honor"
  • 12. 14 April 1993 "Face of Death"
  • 13. 5 May 1993 "Revenge"
  • 14. 12 May 1993 "Darien Comes Home"
  • 15. 19 May 1993 "Two Beans in a Wheel"
  • 16. 26 May 1993 "Little Boy Lost"
  • 17. 27 October 1993 "The Mysterious Stranger"
  • 18. 3 November 1993 "Framed"
  • 19. 10 November 1993 "Beautiful Songbird"
  • 20. 17 November 1993 "Photo Finish"
  • 21. 26 November 1993 "Darrow for the Defense"
  • 22. 1 December 1993 "One On One"


Season 2
  • 23. 29 January 1994 "Return of the Yakazu"
  • 24. 5 February 1994 "Missing"
  • 25. 12 February 1994 "To Live or Die in Docker Flats"
  • 26. 19 February 1994 "A Close Encounter"
  • 27. 26 February 1994 "The Gravity of it All"
  • 28. 5 March 1994 "Happy Valley"
  • 29. 12 March 1994 "Lethal Weapons"
  • 30. 19 March 1994 "The Cure"
  • 31. 23 April 1994 "Perfect Pair"
  • 32. 30 April 1994 "Catch Me If You Can"
  • 33. 7 May 1994 "The Dream Team"
  • 34. 14 May 1994 "Almost Human"
  • 35. 21 May 1994 "Mother"
  • 36. 28 May 1994 "The Last M.I.A."
  • 37. 15 October 1994 "Split Image"
  • 38. 22 October 1994 "Cool Hand Darien"
  • 39. 29 October 1994 "The Lottery"
  • 40. 5 November 1994 "Out For Blood"
  • 41. 12 November 1994 "The Scarlet Koala"
  • 42. 19 November 1994 "Optic Nerve"
  • 43. 26 November 1994 "The Crash"
  • 44. 3 December 1994 "Forgotten Tomorrows"

International broadcasters

- Doordarshan
DoorDarshan
Doordarshan is an Indian public service broadcaster, a division of Prasar Bharati. It is one of the largest broadcasting organizations in India in terms of the infrastructure of studios and transmitters. Recently, it has also started Digital Terrestrial Transmitters. On September 15, 2009,...

 - ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

, Sci Fi Channel - PTV
Pakistan Television Corporation
The Pakistan Television Corporation is Pakistan's national television broadcaster. The first live transmission of PTV began on November 26, 1964, in Lahore...

 - Sirasa TV
Sirasa TV
Sirasa TV is an analogue terrestrial television network in Sri Lanka. It is the sister channel of 'Channel 1 MTV' which was established in 1992. Sirasa TV was founded in 1998 to similar itself to their Radio network Sirasa FM. Sirasa TV is owned by the Sri Lankan business conglomerate The Capital...

 (Previously known as MTV) - Sat.1
Sat.1
Sat.1 is a privately owned German television broadcasting station. Sat.1 was the first privately owned television broadcasting station in Germany, having started one day before RTL Television....

 - RTL Klub
RTL Klub
RTL Klub is a television station owned by RTL Group and broadcast in Hungary. It was one of Hungary's first commercial TV channels and was only two days after the main rival TV2 to begin broadcasting.-About RTL Klub:...

 - Telad
Telad
Telad is an Israeli production company. The company is mostly known for being one of the three concessionaires whom ran the Israeli commercial television channel Channel 2 between the years 1993–2005.- History :...

 - CTC - RCTI
RCTI
RCTI is Indonesia's first privately owned television network and is based in West Jakarta. RCTI broadcasts Indonesian Idol as well as sinetron , films, news and current affairs, reality shows and religious programs...

 - SBS
SBS
-Banking:* Swiss Bank Corporation, previously one of the major Swiss banks, now merged into UBS* SBS Bank, a building society in the Southland region of New Zealand that is now registered as a bank* Skipton Building Society* Scarborough Building Society...


Video game for Super NES

A video game for the Super NES console based on the series was released on the U.S. market by Malibu Games in April 1994 (although some sources list December 1993). A Mega Drive version was also planned but never released.
  • Product Description:

Do you have the guts to step into the shoes of Fugitive Retrieval Officer, Darien Lambert? Travel from the future to today's criminal underworld in an attempt to capture some smart thugs from the 22nd Century. Of course, your weapons and fighting skills will be years ahead of their time, but then so will your enemies. Taking place in our nations capital, the game sends you out on a massive hunt for scientist Mordicai Sahmbi, an assassin known as Sepp Dietrich, and a host of other bad dudes. Intelligent enemies, awesome combat maneuvers, and richly varied missions mark this epic chase through the centuries.
  • Rated E for everyone - 1 player


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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