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'Space Patrol Orion' West German 1966 TV series & ST:TOS


That's pretty impressive: the dance choreography must've been tough, yet it's all so smooth!

As you can all imagine the dance sequences were what everyone in the audience would always remember about the series.

Back in the 1960's it looked totally weird, but if you think of all the aerobic excercises we've seen in the past decades it starts to look less weird, or at least IMHO. :)

Bob
 
The sets for Orion look fantastic - maybe too simple and not very realistic, but they have some real scale and imagination.

The funny thing is, they used every day items for their sets more then TOS ever did. Part of their main console is an ironing machine ;-)

The science is a lot worse than in TOS. Here the authors truly didn't give a shit about astronomy and physics. And the technobabble, as far as I can understand it, makes absolutely no sense. It's just a bunch of exotic/technological sounding words connected, but there is no meaning behind it.

There is one episode that is all about a super nova, (which they sometimes call "Super Nova" and sometimes "Fast Runner")..but what the SFX shows is a comet. And then they go and destroy the super nova using a weapon called "Overkill" ;-)
 
Star Trek TOSpremiered in September 1966.and
Space Patrol Orion AKA Raumpatrouille Orion
(literal translation: Space Patrol – The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion) both premiered on TV in September of 1966 ... Did ARD in West Germany hear of Gene Roddenberry's pilot in 1964 and create their show?

They probably shared many of the same inspirations (Books: EE "Doc" Smith, Robert Heinlein's "Space Cadet," etc.; Films: "Forbidden Planet," etc.). Germany also had their own homegrown Perry Rhodan series among others. In the states, Roddenberry had seen Captain Video, Space Patrol (US), Captain Video, etc. (wherein they all contain bits here and there that would later resemble things in Trek '66).

"Star Trek" in and of itself wasn't a totally original creation. What did make it "different" was that it was aimed at an older audience. Science Fiction and Space Opera also was not unique to the USA.
 
I love the intro text at the beginning of the opening theme...I made a quick translation:

"What sounds like a fairy tale today may be reality tomorrow.
This is a fairy tale of the day after tomorrow:
There are no nations anymore.
There is just humankind and its colonies in space.
People settle on far away planets.
The ocean floor has been develeoped as residental area.
Space ships rush thru our milky way with speeds still unimaginable today.
One of those space ships is the ORION, a tiny part of a gigantic security system protecting earth from dangers from space.
Let´s accompany the ORION and its crew on its patrol service at the edge of infinity..."
 
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^^ Almost flawless translation. In German "star" could equally refer to either a celestial body like the Sun or a planet. In the context of the opening narration it's "people settle on far away planets". :)

Bob
 
^^ Almost flawless translation. In German "star" could equally refer to either a celestial body like the Sun or a planet. In the context of the opening narration it's "people settle on far away planets". :)

Bob

You´re right of course...as a german native speaker I´m embarrassed to have made that error. :-(
 
As you can all imagine the dance sequences were what everyone in the audience would always remember about the series.

Back in the 1960's it looked totally weird, but if you think of all the aerobic exercises we've seen in the past decades it starts to look less weird, or at least IMHO.
Not much sillier than this:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wnNhz0k_Qjg[/yt]


Or this scene from The Day the Fish Came Out (1967):

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_MtOMDsRiY[/yt]

Maybe we should start a "Silly-Looking Dance" thread.
 
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