Raumpatrouille - Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion

Having now watched all 7 episodes, I have to say I am quite impressed! I guess that it must be compared to its contemporary, Star Trek, the original series. It was made far more cheaply and it shows.

TOS had similar constraints, but the quality of the background paintings and costumes was better. Of course STTOS was shot in color and Raumpatrouille really should have been. Maybe someday a colorized version of the episodes will be released. I don't think the series has a region 1 DVD release as of yet, but more people in America need to see it. It's original air dates make TOS being a major influence unlikely, but like TOS, I think the creators were looking closely at Forbidden Planet.

This show showed *much* more equality of women than STTOS. At least one was a general in command of a starship. On the other hand, there was not a black or brown face to be seen. They never give a year for when the action is taking place, but it is a time in the future when nations no longer exist. The names of the crew members of Orion indicate they are at least from all over Europe. The assigned security officer, Tamara Jagellovsk, seems to be Russian. The Captain, Cliff McLane, is possibly supposed to be American. The Female general is apparently Dutch, but nobody is African, Chinese, Indian, Arab or any other non white, non-European type. I guess all of them are minding the store on Earth. So they have different blind spots from those of Gene Roddenberry.

The series ended after a mere seven episode at least partially because it couldn't sell to international markets like the USA and Japan because it was in black and white, but it did spawn a few dozen spin off novels that have never been translated into English.

I would urge *anyone* who has even a passing interest in SF TV to catch up with this series.

Brilliant "space patrol" series complemented by Peter Thomas' famous soundtrack.

Incredibly, even today (2020) the special effects and sci-fi environment - though dated and in 60s style - don't seem absurd and are still fairly convincing. This speaks for the visionary achievement of the series' creators at the time of production during the "space race" years, ahead of the 1969 moon landing.

Raumpatrouille and the Orion's rebellious commander Cliff Mc Lane are obvious templates later copied to create StarTrek and captain Kirk. The series is a genre-defining masterpiece with quirky dialogues and enjoyable plots. Highly recommended for sci-fi fans!

Orion is undoubtedly the best sci-fi TV series ever made. I recently discovered that some scenes from the first episode are clearly inspired by the Russian SF film Ikarie XB. The best programs from the early days of television were probably made by people with experience in the film industry. The famous BBC quality for drama also arose because people from the film industry started working for the BBC.

This series were my first contact with science fiction and after 30 years it's great to see them again. The series are repeated in Germany from time to time and it's a lot of laugh to see a flat-iron or a faucet, which are used as ship-controls. After the mission the crew met in the bar, which was deep underwater and you can see the fishes through the windows. IMHO there were two things, which made this mini-series successful. First, the crew-members were from different countries which was explained by their names (it was the time of the cold war). On the other side, there were extraterrestrial enemies, the "frogs", who wanted to slave the earth. And all the things were "sciene-fiction", they had video-phones (in a time where only a handful of people had a phone), they lived on the ground of the sea, they were flying with space-ships through the universe.

The very best thing about this show is the cast. The storyline is so far away from believable and it is so immature from the technical point of view. Even Metropolis had better tricks on offer and this movie is like made in the "Flintstones" timeline. But the worst thing of all were the dialogues. It made the actors look totally stupid.