From: leeper@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (mark.r.leeper)
Subject: TIME TRAX
Organization: AT&T
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 16:19:10 GMT

                                 TIME TRAX
                   A television review by Mark R. Leeper

     The year is still young and this is our third science fiction series to
debut.  Apparently we have another time travel television series that looks
as if it could follow in the time tracks of TIME TUNNEL and QUANTUM LEAP.
It certainly is the silliest of the newest science fiction shows.

     Our story begins in the present with a time traveler falling into a
stall in the women's restroom in the Smithsonian Institute (well, they call
it an "institute").  This is Darien Lambert, a fancy cop from 2193.  What is
he doing in our time?  We flash back to 2193 ... uh ... we flash forward to
Lambert's past in 2193 ... uh ... we flash forward back to Lambert's past in
the future.  (Yeah, that's what we do.)  In this future police have gotten
more technical, computers have gotten much smaller, criminals have become
much cleverer, and matte painters have lost the secrets of their ancestors.

     Lambert is born on August 17, 2160, which seems to fall on a Monday
contrary to all current expectations that it will be a Sunday.  Lambert has
an IQ of over 200 which he either chooses not to use or which may indicate
downward recalibration.  Advanced technology has made him a super-athlete
and has given him the ability to "slow down visual images" until it is too
late.  He makes himself a super-cop.  Then he stumbles onto a mad Nobel
Laureate who has been sending something like a hundred criminals back to
1993 where they are trying to take over the government, just like Burr,
Bonaparte, and Brutus.  (Brutus?  Brutus was a follower of Pompey who was
forgiven and given a governorship by Caesar, but allowed himself to be
goaded into joining the assassination plot.  He was no empire builder!)

     Lambert is given an AT&T smart card that is just a little smarter.  It
is a tiny super-computer that projects  a hologram of a frumpy know-it-all
librarian who can answer Lambert's questions.  It is called SELMA (short for
"Special Encapsulated Limitless Memory Archive")  Gee, the computer has a
female name which is an acronym.  Gosh, that has a nostalgic feel.  I
thought that went out with 1950s science fiction films!  he finds out the
mechanics of time travel from a beautiful super-genius, then goes back two
hundred years and finds a woman who looks just like the one he just left.
(Oh, boy!  Now they're borrowing from Mummy movies.)  So Lambert is now in
1993 hunting down criminals from 2193 who are trying to take over our world.
When he needs to send a message back to 2193 he places an ad in the
Washington Post.  His trusty old police captain is scanning the 200-year-old
papers for ads that he could not find the previous week, but were placed two
hundred years earlier.  Luckily the captain has not thought to look at the
front page or he would know if the coup succeeded.  I guess the idea is that
the past is changing the future, and there are allusions to something never
explained about parallel universes having something to do with time travel.
I don't understand it, the writers don't understand it, only Lambert
understands it because he took a course in Parallel Universe Theory at the
Police Academy.  Confused?  Hey, I spared you the whole bit about the time
travel drug.

     All this is produced by Harve Bennett, usually associated with "Star
Trek" movies.  Whether this series becomes something creative and
interesting, or falls into being just a souped-up INVADERS remains to be
seen.  We will all know some time in the future.

					Mark R. Leeper
					att!mtgzfs3!leeper
					leeper@mtgzfs3.att.com
					Copyright 1993 Mark R. Leeper