Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Raumpatrouille Orion – or Raumpatrouille — Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion” (“Space Patrol — The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion”) to give it is full title – is getting a reboot, courtesy of Bavaria Fiction and Uncharted Territory.

There are no more nations. There is only mankind and its colonies in space. People have settled on faraway stars. The ocean floor has been made habitable. At speeds still unimaginable today, space vessels soar through our Milky Way. One of these vessels is the Orion, a minuscule part of a gigantic security system protecting Earth from the threats of outer space.

The original short-lived series (7 episodes in 1966) about the adventures of the starship Orion followed the crew as they saved Earth from invasion by the Frogs. According to Variety, the new version is set in “a world ravaged by climate change in which the new recruits of the aged space cruiser Orion — among them the female fighter pilot from a refugee family and the grandson of the now legendary former Commander McLane — must band together during training as they suddenly become targets in a ruthless war over resources from distant planets.”

“We will take the topic of raised water levels from the original series a step further and show the actual impact of climate change,” Uncharted Territory’s Volker Engel told Variety. “In our stories we plan to promote the fact that in the future environmental protection is not just a question of politics, but the only means to guarantee the survival of mankind. We’d like to think it is called science-fiction for a reason.

“It’s the perfect time for a reboot, and for us and Nina it was evident from the get-go that we would steer clear from a persiflage or a comedic approach — because one fact has always been extremely important to us: the creators of the original took it very seriously and embedded it into Europe’s political and social climate of the ’60s,” Engel added. “The mix of suspense, relevance and escapism, told through characters we feel emotionally connected with, is one of the main aspects of how we approach the series — and it is also the key to good science fiction.”