Darien Lambert (Dale Midkiff) was Captain of the Fugitive Retrieval Section of the Washington DC police force in the year 2193 AD whose life was forever changed when he encountered evil scientist Dr Mordecai Sahmbi (Peter Donat), the driving force behind ‘TRAX’ (Trans-Time Research and Experimentation) – a secret project that he had subverted to his own end.
The TRAX machine enabled people to travel back in time, and Sahmbi was using it to transport 22nd Century criminals back to 1993 to avoid capture.
When Sahmbi was about to be captured he went back too, followed by Darien, whose mission was to track down all the future criminals now in the 20th century and use his ‘PPT’ (Pellet Projection Tube) – a device that looked like a garage-door remote control – to send them back to the future for trial and punishment.
Darien communicated with the 2193 police by placing classified ads in 1993 editions of the Washington Post that the future cops would then read in the archives and act upon. Helping him was SELMA (Specified Encapsulated Limitless Memory Archive), a miniaturised sentient computer hidden in what looked like a credit card.
SELMA, who sometimes had trouble understanding the illogical functioning of humans, normally communicated by talking to him but could go visual, appearing as an attractively prim woman (Elizabeth Alexander) in early-20th-century clothing.
Sahmbi was determined to kill Darien and showed up periodically with various plans – all ultimately unsuccessful – to dispose of his nemesis.
Although a US production, the series was filmed in Australia.
Captain Darien Lambert
Dale Midkiff SELMA
Elizabeth Alexander Dr Mordecai (Mo) Sahmbi
Peter Donat
The TRAX machine enabled people to travel back in time, and Sahmbi was using it to transport 22nd Century criminals back to 1993 to avoid capture.
