History Series / TimeTrax

* RareGuns: One episode has a thief using a gun from the future that emits an energy wave that knocks people out. Working with a local cop, Darien sells the idea that the gun is a "secret prototype" that the thief stole from a research lab. When the cop asks why these can't be mass-produced for police, Darien convinces her that a single prototype costs a million dollars and thus far too expensive to make in large numbers. When the thief is sent back to the future, the cop believes Darien's tale that the whole thing is going to be hushed up by "my superiors" and the gun going back to its makers.

The TimeTravel treatment in the series was inconsistent. Captain Lambert, fearing the possible consequences of altering the timeline, did not actively attempt to interfere with the flow of history known to him, although he frequently left messages for his colleagues in 2193 (via the 'personals' sections of a newspaper). However, the series made a couple allusions to a theory of parallel timelines to try (not very succesfully) to evade the issue of temporal paradox, implying that the time travellers went into an alternate past so that their actions there had no effect [[MeanwhileInTheFuture on the 2193 "present."]] (This would prevent the newspapers ads from being read in the future, however...) This inconsistency affected the selected method for retrieving fugitives also; after they received a projected pellet, sometimes Lambert published an ad requesting the retrieval, but most of the time SELMA would emit a "transmission tone" which somehow was detected by TRAX and triggered the time travel of the fugitive.

-->'''Laura''': So were guilty all along.

* NomDeMom: In an interesting example, it's mentioned in the pilot that "according to the custom of the time, he was allowed to choose his own name." Darien chooses his mother's surname, although in the episode [[spoiler: where he meets and loses his mother]]it's implied that he didn't know anything about his father.

* ChildProdigy: Elissa Chang-Knox was accepted at MIT at only nine years old. In the episode [[{{Lampshaded}}'The Prodigy']] Darien tracks down a twelve-year-old accidental fugitive (he was kidnapped in the ultimate child custody dispute) when he breaks a National record (that should not be achievable by a 20th-century child) during a school track meet. Darien tells him later that Will's running speeds are not ordinary in ''any'' time frame.

* FlyingFirepower: One episode has Darien run into a 22nd-century scientist who is "inventing" new devices in the 20th century (most of them either his own or others' inventions). The most dangerous invention is the APTUX (Anti-gravity Personal Transport Unit, Experimental), a belt that allows a person to fly. In the climax, a bad guy gets his hands on the second prototype (a more stable version) and starts chasing Darien and the scientist while firing a submachinegun from above. Darien is able to knock him out with his [[StunGun MPPT]], and the guy crashes to the ground, with the belt exploding.

* StunGuns: Darien's Micro-Pellet Projection Tube, disguised as an ordinary car alarm keychain. Two of its buttons fire stun pellets (green and blue), which stun a person either for a few minutes or a few hours. The third button is for dosing the target with TXP, a drug required for TimeTravel. Notably, one episode has a person point out that it looks like a ''Franchise/StarTrek'' phaser (the non-pistol-looking ones).

* FirstContact: According to Selma, an alien race from the planet Procardia have made contact with Earth a few decades before Darien's departure into the past. A ship with a Procardian delegation is expected within the next few years. As Darien discovers, though, Procardians have been to Earth before but have found humans wanting. One of them was accidentally left behind, and her lover later arrives to look for her on a one-way trip. After they are reunited, Darien offers to send them to the future to await their ride home. They agree, even though TXP hasn't been tested on non-humans and could be fatal. Also, all their loved ones will be dead by the 22nd century.

* DiedInYourArmsTonight: [[spoiler: Darien finally meets his mother (who is a temporal fugitive), only for her to give her life to save his. He holds her, as she expires from a mortal wound, unable to send her to the future, as the shock would be fatal]].

* MayDecemberRomance: implied with Elissa Chang-Knox (who looks to be in her mid-twenties at most) and her MadScientist mentor Mordecai Sahmbi (early sixties); one of the reasons he turns corrupt is because she left him sometime in the past - he lures her back to work with him on the TRAX project, but she's working very hard to keep things professional. To be fair to the show, it doesn't show their relationship as healthy or right, but twenty-first century viewers tend to find it more than a little {{Squick}}y, especially after these lines in the pilot:

* ChildProdigy: Elissa Chang-Knox was accepted at MIT at only nine years old. In the episode [[{{Lampshaded}}'The Prodigy']] Darien tracks down a twelve year old accidental fugitive (he was kidnapped in the ultimate child custody dispute) when he breaks a National record (that should not be achievable by a 20th century child) during a school track meet. Darien tells him later that Will's running speeds are not ordinary in ''any'' time frame.
* DaChief: Darien's police captain in the future. He only ever interacts with him through messages, though.

* DisposableLoveInterest: Nearly every episode Lambert gets a new girlfriend, then leaves her behind by the time the end credits roll.

** The same scientist, who invented the DisintegratorRay (see above), invents a powerful laser that is used to cut open thick safes in seconds. His cronies use it to rob armored trucks to finance his research.

* EvilTwin: In the form of a Sahmbi created android in the episode "Almost Human".

* MundaneUtility: A 22nd century scientist "invents" a number of devices in the 20th century. How does he use a device for instantaneous cooling? To chill beer, of course. Why? What other purpose might such a technology have?

* SupernaturalFearInducer: Darien arrives to a hotel, whose owner uses special waves to cause sleeping people to experience nightmares to the point of death. In the climax, Selma manages to ReverseThePolarity and send the waves back at the bad guy.

* TimeyWimeyBall: The "parallel universe theory" is mentioned in the pilot, and in an episode which required avoiding a series of assasinations convincing the would-be perpetrators that their actions wouldn't have effect on their own timeline; other episodes acted as if Lambert was changing the timeline with every action.
** One episode makes the "parallel universe" explicit when seemingly random people are murdered by a weapon from the future. Lambert realizes the killer is a man whose beloved girlfriend was accidentally killed by a cop in the 22nd century. The victims are all of the cop's ancestors and he believes by killing them, that cop will never be born and she'll stay alive. Selma openly tells Darien that this is flawed as these deaths do nothing to alter the timeline Lambert is from but he notes the killer is unaware of that or doesn't believe it.

The TimeTravel treatment in the series was inconsistent. Captain Lambert, fearing the possible consequences of altering the timeline, did not actively attempt to interfere with the flow of history known to him, although he frequently left messages for his colleagues in 2193 (via the 'personals' sections of a newspaper). However, the series made a couple allusions to a theory of parallel timelines to try (not very succesfully) to evade the issue of temporal paradox, implying that the time travellers went into an alternate past so that their actions there had no effect [[MeanwhileInTheFuture on the 2193 "present."]] (This would prevent the newspapers ads to be read in the future, however...) This inconsistency affected the selected method for retrieving fugitives also; after they received a projected pellet, sometimes Lambert published an ad requesting the retrieval, but most of the time SELMA would emit a "transmission tone" which somehow was detected by TRAX and triggered the time travel of the fugitive.

* FrickinLaserBeams:
** The same scientist, who invented the DisintegratorRay (see above), invents a powerful laser that is used to cut open thick safes in seconds. His cronies use it to rob armored trucks to finance his research.
** Another episode involves a sort-of weapon that fires invisible beams that speed up a living being's heartbeat temporarily with eventual fatal results. The episode's villain uses it to consistently win at horse racing. Darien later finds the farm, where the guy's horses get sent after every race (he keeps buying new ones) and finds dozens of them buried there. The bad guy then kills an underling this way, causing a heart attack.

TimeTravel is invented in the last decade of the 22nd century, and its inventor, Doctor Mordecai "Mo" Sahmbi, uses it to help criminals escape justice by sending them back 200 years in time. When Sahmbi uses it himself, police Captain Darien Lambert volunteers to go into the past himself, capture the fugitives and return them to the 22nd century to pay for their crimes.

* EvilAllAlong: Top defense attorney Laura Darrow comes to the present to tell Darien that she's just won an exenteration for her client, a doctor accused of killing his wife. When she and Darien track him down, they find the guy is working for Sambai. Laura blames Darien, claiming that after he and the media "railroaded" the guy for a crime he didn't commit, he must have gone bad. However, when the doctor talks of how he can easily kill them and get away with it, Laura realizes he really ''did'' murder his wife and she's been wasting the last year trying to "clear" a guilty man who has no qualms helping Sambai in his plans.

* BloodSport: Inverted. In the future, boxing is considered this trope and has been made illegal. In one episode, Darien is approached by the father of a kid, who has escaped into the past in order to become a boxing champion using his enhanced future physique and "time stalling" as advantages. Darien is forced to train in order to knock him out of the championship.

* ChildProdigy: Elissa Chang-Knox was accepted at MIT at only nine years old. In the episode 'The Champion' Darien tracks down a twelve year old accidental fugitive (he was kidnapped in the ultimate child custody dispute) who breaks a National record during a school track meet. Darien tells him later that Sean's running speeds are not ordinary in ''any'' time frame.

* DiedInYourArmsTonight: [[spoiler:Darien finally meets his mother (who is a temporal fugitive), only for her to give her life to save his. He holds her, as she expires from a mortal wound, unable to send her to the future, as the shock would be fatal]].

* IdenticalGrandson: Lambert's paramour from the future, Elissa Chang-Knox, and her police grandmother in the present, Annie Knox, who helps Lambert on his initial pursuits.

-->'''Laura''': You did it. You were guilty all along.
-->'''Doctor''': Which just proves what an amazing attorney you are.

* TimeMachine: TRAX. Its use is normally lethal to living beings. A person can ingest a drug called TXP to allow him- or herself to survive a time jump. However, the drug itself is fatal after two doses, which allows, at most, a jump there and back. It's possible the technology is still in its infancy and may be made safer at some point. Sahmbi has also re-created a more primitive time machine, while in the 20th century, and used it to help corrupt industrialists get rid of toxic waste... by sending it to the future.

* StunGuns: Darien's Micro-Pellet Projection Tube, disguised as an ordinary car alarm keychain. Two of its buttons fire stun pellets (green and blue), which stun a person either for a few minutes or a few hours. The third button is for dosing the target with TXP, a drug required for TimeTravel.