I remember watching the TV sci-fi series “Time Trax” when it was first aired in 1993. Back then, I thought it was great. It lasted for two seasons, about 40 episodes. The plot line involved a cop (played by Dale Midkiff) from the year 2193 who travels back in time, pursuing criminals from his own period who escaped into the past using a time machine built by an evil scientist. His job is to send them “back” to 2193.

Recently, I watched the series again, and was struck by how silly it was. I got to thinking about how attitudes change with time. Of course, I was much younger when I saw the original TV broadcasts. But I didn’t think my tastes had changed that much. I remain, as I was back in 1993, a great fan of science fiction.

Upon reflection, I can understand why I liked it so much back then. The theme, while not original, is still interesting — how someone from the future would live in and adapt to a world he only knows from history books. I’ve thought about this myself, because of my own fascination with history. Humans haven’t changed fundamentally in thousands of years; they still have the same desires and needs, feel the same emotions, and relate to each other in much the same ways. But social norms can change dramatically over time. If we try to put ourselves in the mindset of an age not so long ago when slavery was accepted, there was marked social stratification, and church doctrine dictated what was considered normal and acceptable, we feel a disconnect. Such a society would be at the same time familiar, and very unfamiliar.

So this was one of the things that appealed to me about the show, especially since the series didn’t get bogged down in the nitty-gritty sci-fi details of time travel or temporal paradoxes. Instead, it blithely ignored them and was mainly an entertainment vehicle, focusing on social issues and action. The other thing I really liked was the protagonist’s computer. This was a device that looked like a credit card, but was really an incredible AI with a very human personality. The computer could present itself as a person (a holographic projection, played by Elizabeth Alexander), and was a far more interesting personality than Dale Midkiff, the hero of the series.

Other than that, it was light hearted entertainment. Lots of action, chases, some romance as the hero flirts with various women he meets in different episodes (all very chaste and G-rated). Nothing special, but pretty good fun.

So I was surprised when I watched it again, 16 years later. The plot line is still interesting, though less novel for having been rehashed dozens of times over the years. The computer is still great. Dale Midkiff, on the other hand, stands the test of time very poorly. He now appears bumbling, inept, and somewhat stupid. He appears to get through each episode largely as a matter of luck. He talks too much, sometimes at inopportune moments, when he should really be shooting the villain rather than pausing to make a speech. His emotional self-control is about par with that of an adolescent. His arguments with Elizabeth Alexander (the computer) become too monotonous and repetitive (the same emotion versus logic stuff that was overdone by Kirk and Spock over dozens of episodes of Star Trek).

To be honest, he doesn’t start out that way. In the pilot and the first couple of episodes, he is much darker, sterner. However, as the series proceeds, his personality changes into basically an overly-politically-correct, cliché-mouthing, self-indulgent, relentlessly upbeat caricature of his early self. Sometimes you just have to look away from the screen for a moment, he is so annoying.

Some episodes were particularly enlightening. “Beautiful Songbird” was basically unwatchable for me. It’s about an up and coming country singer (played by Kassie Wesley/DePaiva, who is a soap actress these days), who is destined for greatness. She acquires an admirer from the future (who knows her future), one of the fugitives that Dale Midkiff must send back to the future to face his crimes. This was unwatchable for several reasons, but mostly because I am unable to tolerate country music anymore. The episode spends a lot of time just showing her singing. I had to mute those segments just to get by.

I didn’t know I hated country music that much. I mean, I can watch Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson at times. I don’t throw up; I actually enjoy some of their songs, though it’s probably partly because I only listen to them very infrequently. But aside from these very few and specific instances, I guess I have lost my tolerance for whiny, waily voices.

The special effects were about par with Star Trek, which was a good 20+ years earlier. Overall, it had the feel of a cheaply made TV show. In many ways, it lost the initial magic it had for me. But it brought home one point. Sci-Fi shouldn’t have to self-consciously focus on the sci-fi aspect of itself. Sometimes it’s best when the sci-fi parts are purely incidental, and the show is really about the characters. It reminds me of Firefly, another of my favorite sci-fi TV shows. Yes, there were spaceships, but for the most part, those guys still used 20th century firearms, moved through recognizable landscapes rather than super-futuristic cities, and even rode horses and covered wagons. It was the actors that made the show, the focus on how people might relate among themselves, in societies with very different rules from those we are used to. Their society is kind of a fragmented anarchy, similar to the frontier in the old west. People migrating fast enough that you can’t impose any uniformity of law or culture on them, fragmenting according to their beliefs into very different and interesting societies.

Time Trax is nowhere near as complex or entertaining as Firefly, but it has some of the same attraction of seeing someone explore a place or time foreign to his own, discover new societies which may seem strange to him, some small sense of wonder at the diversity of it all.