Raumpatrouille - Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion

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!!

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.

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.

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.