Commando spatial - La fantastique aventure du vaisseau Orion

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.

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.

The series was shown on TV before Star Trek had appeared. If you compare the special effects of Raumpatrouille to those of the first Star Trek pilot (which had not been aired until the early 90s), they were very much alike. Of course, today most people just laugh at such effects. But unlike Star Trek, the plot of Raumpatrouille and its political contents was far more symbolic and, I think, more interesting. Unfortunately, the series never evolved any further and stopped after the seventh episode for some reason. The German TV station Pro7 announced a continuation of Raumpatrouille in the 90s, but I doubt that it will ever be finished. And if it was, it will most probably not have the same taste as the original series.

This series is fun. Released before Star Trek it has a great storyline about the future of mankind. But as usual it was canceled by the german TV despite of its success. Rumor has it, that there are plans to relaunch the series with Roland Emmerich as producer. Lets hope and see!!