Space Patrol Orion

Here is the text that Philip Thomas was allowed to read on the occasion of Peter Thomas’ retrospective in February 2024 in the run-up to the long “Orion Night”: As today’s audience is likely to be mainly Orion specialists, I’m not going to go out on a limb and explain Space Patrol to you. Instead, I will try to place the Space Patrol in the context of the time and draw parallels with the Star Trek series. And don’t worry, no more than 7 minutes! The scripts for the 7-part series were written by Rolf Honold. The series was accused of having reactionary and militant tendencies when it was first broadcast. The constellation of characters in Raumpatrouille was also controversial, such as Commander McLane’s relationship with Russian agent Tamara Jagelowsk. According to Dietmar Schönherr, the relationship was “the East-West conflict in a nutshell at the time”. If the commander with an American-sounding name is supposed to listen to a control officer with a Russian name, there must be tensions. A total of three sci-fi series began in the mid-1960s – Space Patrol, Star Trek and Dr Who. And that was no coincidence: it was the golden age of (manned) space travel, between Sputnik 1, the Russian satellite (1957), the first manned space flight with Yuri Gagarin (1961) and the first manned moon landing by the Apollo 11 team (1969). However, the 1960s were not only the decade of the beginning conquest of space, but also the decade of a race between the USA and the USSR and the Cold War. Space Patrol” premiered on 17 September 1966, just nine days after the first “Star Trek” episode, and at first glance they had a lot in common: both are set in the distant but not entirely dissimilar future; both series focus on a spaceship and its multi-ethnic crew; both are about military conflicts as well as personal stories; both begin, to images of space and the respective spaceships, with the combination of title music and voiceover that introduces us to the fictional world. However, the voiceover and music also make it clear how radically different these stories are. While we learn that the Enterprise is to find “strange new worlds, new life and new civilisations”, the Orion serves as a “tiny part of a gigantic security system that protects Earth from threats from space”. Five of the seven episodes have to do with the fight against the extra-iridian “Frogs”. The military focus of the series, along with the production costs, was the reason why Bavaria did not renew it; audience reactions were positive, but the criticism was harsh with what Helmut Krapp, a member of the production team, described as “almost fascist traits” (quoted from Kastner 1995: 85). Another interpretation would probably be more correct, namely to understand Raumpatrouille not as an ideological relapse into bad old times, but as an attempt to determine the place of the FRG in the new era, and in this it was indeed part of a gigantic security system, even if this was not directed against threats from space, but against those from the Soviet Union and its satellite states, a threat that had taken on a new dimension with the space race. The raison d’être of the FRG was Western integration, ideologically, economically and militarily. The Space Patrol and, symbolically, the crew of the Orion are an example of this symbolic integration and the comparison with “Star Trek” is interesting. The Enterprise is commanded by an American, who is assisted by a team including another American, a Scotsman (Scotty), an African officer, a Japanese-American helmsman, a Russian navigator and, beyond humanity, the half-Vulcan science officer Spock. The crew of the Orion is similarly international, with American, Italian, Swedish, French and Russian members, i.e. as in “Star Trek”, the current enemy in the East is symbolically integrated into the new community and a new one, the Frogs, is put in its place. But while in “Star Trek” US-Americans make up the majority and provide the captain, in “Raumpatrouille” the only undoubtedly German character, Lieutenant Spring-Brauner, is the caricature of an over-correct, inflexible civil servant, while Dietmar Schönherr Major Cliff Allister McLane is American, signalling West Germany’s subordination to the new hegemon. And while the national origins of the characters are clear in the names of the Enterprise crew, “Raumpatrouille” disguises these origins: Helga Legrelle, Hasso Sigbjörnson (French or Swedish surnames, but German first names), Colonel Henryk Villa (Polish/Italian). In “Raumpatrouille”, national identities dissolve into an overall identity in which the old, bad Germany has lost its contours. And when it comes to music, Raumpatrouille makes more exclusive use of contemporary popular music than “Star Trek”. Peter Thomas, already known for the music of Edgar Wallace, Jerry Cotton and Melissa, was used to working quickly and with a small ensemble: For “Raumpatrouille”, it was supplemented by brass players, bassists and a small choir. Characteristic of Thomas’ music is the use of textless voices as a colour in the ensemble sound, as he aspired to make music that was in tune with the times (the term “New Astronautic Sound” suggests contemporaneity in the context of the space race. An all-purpose modernity that corresponds perfectly to the function of “Raumpatrouille” as a projection of a new Germany and perhaps also because it toned down the militaristic aspect of the series and avoided traditions of heroic war film music. While in the original “Star Trek” series a large part of the running time is accompanied by music in a way that is not stylistically – but methodically – reminiscent of Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s and often takes on a cartoon-like clarity, “Raumpatrouille” is musically sparse. Only a good 18% of the series’ running time uses music, with the title music being one of the longer elements. The 56-second “Raumpatrouille” opening credits are a model of musical economy and essentially consist of variations on an A minor chord. And I would like to conclude here with an example of Vater’s creative working method: The normal sound of the piano was not very suitable for a science fiction series. So Vatern took an amplifier and a microphone, put the microphone on the piano strings, turned the knobs a bit and suddenly it was like an underwater piano. And Vatern’s conclusion: that’s how it should actually sound in a spaceship. Source: ZUKUNFTSMUSIK, Star Trek, Raumpatrouille, Dr Who und der Soundtrack zum Wettlauf ins All by Guido Heldt; in Berliner Debatte Initial 32 (2021)