Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion


Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion, also known as Raumpatrouille Orion, and Space Patrol Orion in English, is a West German science fiction television series. Its seven episodes were broadcast by ARD from 17 September 1966. It was the first German science fiction TV series. With audience ratings as high as 56%, it was a huge success and racked up numerous reruns. Over the years, the series acquired a distinct cult status in Germany.

Premise

In the series, nations no longer exist and Earth is united. Flying saucers, such as spaceship Orion, are flown by humans, whilst the aliens fly fighter jet-like aircraft. The titular ship, "Spaceship Orion", is portrayed as being a fast space cruiser, the newest starship in mankind's fleet and the fastest spacecraft ever created by humans.
The show tells the story of Commander Cliff Allister McLane, an Earth starship captain and his loyal crew. He is Orion commander in the developing war against an alien race called the Frogs. He is notoriously defiant towards his superiors.
The seven stories in the TV series are set in the years 3000 to 3003 during the period that the Orion and its crew are demoted to serve in the lowly space patrol sector and are monitored by an onboard security officer.
Throughout the series, reference is made to two galactic interplanetary wars. The first war took place 400-500 years before the series setting when people from the Neptune Colony joined the rebels against the earth government's terrestrial control.
The story posits that there are no nation states in the year 3000. In episode 5 - Battle for the Sun, the character Hasso comments that he has "as much chance to be the Emperor of China" when making a comparison on the planet Chroma.

Characters

  • Major Cliff Allister McLane is the commander of the Orion and a friend to most of its crew. He is a daredevil and hero who does not fight for money or glory, but for peace. He has been a member of Earth's space fleet for 15 years and was a soldier in at least one previous large-scale war. As a running gag, McLane often has to destroy the spaceship Orion to save Earth, afterwards being awarded command of a better vessel. In the TV series it was shown only with the destruction of the Orion VII, though in the novels it went as far as to the Orion X-C. Cliff Alistair McLane character is of American descent with a Scottish ancestry.
  • Lt. Mario de Monti is the computer specialist and gunner of the Orion and a good friend of Commander McLane. He is often shown drinking with his friends and he is a womanizer who likes to flirt with young, attractive women. The de Monti character is of Italian descent.
  • Lt. Atan Shubashi is the astrogator and star cartographer of the Orion. He is the owner of 264, one of the last 367 poodles that still exist on Earth. This character is of Japanese descent.
  • Lt. Hasso Sigbjörnson is the Orion's engineer. He likes to drink and is the only crew member who is married. He is an old friend of Commander McLane who usually helps him to explain to Ingrid why he can't retire after all. Both Hasso and Ingrid are of Scandinavian descent.
  • Lt. Helga Legrelle is the surveillance and communication officer of the Orion. Like the other members of the crew, she dislikes Tamara Jagellovsk and feels monitored by her. Like Jagellovsk, Legrelle has a secret crush on Commander McLane and reacts very jealously whenever she notices Jagellovsk paying too much attention to him. This character is of French descent.
  • Lt. Tamara Jagellovsk is a member of the GSD who has been given the task of keeping McLane under control. Tamara likes McLane, however, and is very amused by his sense of humour. The Crew at first strongly dislike her, but with time they develop a feeling of mutual respect. Tamara can issue "Alpha Orders" which are orders of highest priority that have to be obeyed by McLane at all cost. The character of the security officer is of Russian descent.
  • Frogs are a highly advanced and very intelligent, energy-like race of extraterrestrial conquerors who are attempting to destroy Earth's space fleet and eliminate mankind. They have extremely fast starships and powerful energy weapons. Some of their technological abilities are superior to Earth's, but oxygen is poisonous to them. In the novels, it is finally revealed what they called themselves: Uraceel / Turceed.
  • General Winston Woodrow Wamsler is McLane's commanding officer while McLane is demoted to 3 years of space patrol duty at the TRAV. The character's name infers an English or American background.
  • General Lydia van Dyke was Cliff's original commanding officer in the year 3000 when McLane was still at the "Schnelle Kampfverbände" and she expected him "not to go away sulking like a space cadet" when he was demoted, but to return to her fleet after his 3 years of patrol duty. She is also the commanding officer of the space ship Hydra. It is assumed that her character is of Dutch descent.
  • Oberst Hendryk Villa is the head of the GSD and thus the boss of Lt. Tamara Jagellovsk. This character is of German descent.
  • Lt. Michael Spring-Brauner is the aide-de-camp to Gen. Wamsler and has a strong dislike towards McLane and his crew. He is a stuck-up bureaucrat and tries to make McLane's life as miserable as he can. Another character of Germanic descent.
  • Space Marshal Kublai Krim is the commanding officer of the Earth Space Forces. The character name infers a Ukrainian-Mongolian background.
  • Sir Arthur is the head of the Earth Space Forces, the Supreme Space Authority, ORB. Sir Arthur's character is obviously of English descent.
  • von Wennerstein is a representative of the Earth government.
  • Clarence, Tim, and Francois, the far-space station MZ4 station crew. They are all found in a form of statis due to the attack by the alien frogs removing all the air from the far-space station.

Fictional technology in Space Patrol

  • Astrodisc is a viewing screen that can produce holographic images of space. It has the same function as the bridge screen of the Enterprise in Star Trek. The astrodisc forms the centerpiece of the Orion's bridge.
  • Light-thrower batteries are the weapons most frequently used by Earth's space fleet and the ships of the Frogs. These weapons come in many different sizes, ranging from hand lasers to planet-destructing cannons. Orion was the first German production to feature the English word "laser".
  • Antimatter bombs are bombs containing antimatter and were used in the attempt to destroy the "Supernova" in the 2nd episode.
  • Overkill is a new weapon that was introduced in the 4th episode, and that was installed on the Orion as the first Earth space ship. It seems to be a disintegrator-style weapon that is able to cause enormous craters hundreds of kilometres wide and even obliterate whole planets.
  • ASG wrist-worn communication devices are part of the technology of Earth's space fleet.
  • Robots are helpers, guards and even housekeepers in the world of tomorrow. Their use is shown to be problematic, because they are depicted as suffering from frequent malfunctions, making them dangerous to human beings. They first appear in the series in episode 3 "Keepers of the Law" as saucer-shaped mining machines quasi-levitating on one bow-leg. They are constrained by Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, about which a lecture is given at the beginning of the episode. Later they appear as androids and floating battle robots. Some of the humanoid robots are very similar in design to the modern Vietnamese robot TOPIO.
  • Deep sea bases are giant cities located under water. They are modern, beautiful and have big windows to allow the people to see fish and other underwater life forms. The Orion usually starts and lands at Basis 104 which is located in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia.
  • Faster-than-light engine is the main drive that allows the crew to traverse the universe at speeds faster than light. The Frogs use a similar but superior technology, with the result that their spacecraft can outpace the ships of the Space Patrol.
  • Magnet shield is a protective shield which is used by the Frogs. The Shield appears as a powerful energy bowl that encircles the starship.

Special effects and set decoration

Many of the special effects seen in the black-and-white series, like the underwater casino and space port, were created by means of the Schüfftan process.
As the series' budget was comparatively low, the set designers resorted to using modified common everyday objects; for instance, electric irons, upside-down clock pendulums, washing-machine console parts, and designer pencil sharpeners were used as props control panels, sewing thread coils and banana plugs as futuristic machine parts, and plastic cups as ceiling lights. Many panels were produced by the then-newly invented thermoforming process. Designer furniture was also extensively used, notably Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's 258-type couch, Harry Bertoia's Diamond-type armchair, Yrjö Kukkapuro's Karuselli-type armchair,
Charles Eames's Aluminium group #EA105 chair, George Nelson's DAF Chair and Eero Saarinen's Tulpe table/chair combo. Joe Colombo's famous Smoke-type drinking glasses were used throughout the series.
Orion's cockpit was a 2.50m high, 10m wide interior set, built within a 28m exterior diameter sound stage. It stood on a 60 cm high metal tube construction to hide the 10,000m cable harness that connected its 3,200 flashing light bulbs to a 40 kg, electric motor-driven pinned-barrel mechanical sequencer.
The stage designer was Rolf Zehetbauer, who later won an Academy Award for his work on Cabaret.
"We had no money available and yet we were instructed to produce an elaborate science-fiction series. We were forced to improvise in all aspects. This ruled out completely manufacturing the spaceship's equipment from scratch. So we used existing things that we could adapt," is how Zehetbauer described the design work of the set.

Production

Rumours about the considerable costs of the series having led to its termination after only seven episodes were denied by the widow of the Orion's original screenwriter, implying that it was planned from the start to have only seven installments. More episode screenplays were written than were filmed. No official reason was given for not producing a second series of episodes, but there are several reasons that were aired in interviews many years later by those involved in the production. According to Hans Gottschalk, one of the executive producers, there was a "lack of exciting script ideas" at the time. Helmut Jedele, then boss of producers Bavaria Film, mentioned in hindsight that the first series had taken the company to its limits both in terms of staff and finance.
Another factor in planning for a second series would have been filming in colour instead of black-and-white. This would have been required for a successful international marketing of an extension, but West German production companies were not yet prepared for the necessary investment for the new equipment.
West German television premiered colour transmissions a year later in 1967, but the switchover from black-and-white took several years.
Yet another impediment might have been that the controllers in charge at the state television channel ARD feared accusations of an excess of "militarism" and a portrayal of a system "akin to fascism". While this might seem far-fetched for foreigners, this issue was and is very sensitive in Germany with regards to the history of the country, and executive producer Helmut Krapp admitted that the issue was considered and taken seriously.

Co-production with French ORTF Television

Originally WDR, headquartered in Cologne, the largest regional broadcasting channel within the ARD public TV consortium, was the sole commissioning producer on behalf of ARD group and in that position to provide complete production funding. However, the planned budget of up to 360,000 DM for each episode was considered too high by the WDR controllers. Bavaria Film chief Helmut Jedele looked for a co-producer to share some of the cost and came to an agreement with French national state TV channel ORTF. They contributed about 20% to production funding and some scenes, notably in episode 5, were re-shot for the French audience using French actors. In France the title of the series was "Commando spatial - Les aventures fantastiques du vaisseau Orion".

Novelizations

were published over the years, often with settings which were considerably different from those seen in the series.
The first issue of novels included stories 1 to 7 of the TV series. It is also noted that the main character has his middle name changed from Allister to Allistair.
The 35 paperback novels span years of the tv series setting as well as stories of the crew's adventures to 3012. Further 111 pulp novels continue the adventures to 3107. The pulp novels also chronicle the early adventures of the crew starting with McLane's graduation from space academy in 2988.
The TV series makes several references to the two Galactic or Interplanetary Wars. The First Galactic War was fought by rebels of the Neptune Colony against the Earth Government. References to this are made in the series episode 5 - Fight for the Sun, where the defeated rebels now live in peace on planet Chroma.
The pulp novelizations also related some of the pre-Raumpatrouille adventures of the older crew members. One reveals that McLane served under General van Dyke's father in the Second Galactic War. McLane also mentions his former military war-time commander, Commodore Ruyther, who is now retired and a minerals transporter captain, in series episode 3 - Guardians of the Law.

Feature film

A movie composed of various scenes from the original series, together with some new footage, debuted in 2003 but did not match the success of the original series. As described by Dietmar Schönherr in an interview, the series had tried to deal with serious issues, a fact appreciated by many of its viewers. The movie's producers tried to replicate the series in trash culture style, however, thereby alienating much of the original fan base. The title of the movie was "Raumpatrouille Orion – Rücksturz ins Kino". The storyline was about the invasion and attacks of the Frogs, the term now becoming an acronym for "Feindliche Raumverbände ohne galaktische Seriennummer". Strangely the English subtitles version indicate that FROGS stands for Foreign Race Of Galactic Scoundrels. Either way, this description, appearing for the first time in the film, contradicts the TV series, where Atan Shubashi and Hasso Sigbjörnson, who were the first humans to see the Frogs on far space outpost MZ4, calling them "Frösche" first, but later switched to the English translation because "Frösche" sounded too familiar to describe the aliens.

Soundtrack and introduction

The emblematic soundtrack was composed by Peter Thomas.
The voice-over introduction, set both tone and atmosphere of the series.
Voice-over introduction in German:
English translation: