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Raumpatrouille - Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion - Invasion
episode 7
Space Patrol 7
West Germany 1966
produced by Hans Gottschalk, Helmut Krapp for Bavaria, WDR
directed by Michael Braun
starring Dietmar Schönherr, Eva Pflug, Wolfgang Völz, Claus Holm, Friedrich G. Beckhaus, Ursula Lillig, Benno Sterzenbach, Friedrich Joloff, Wolf Harnisch, Charlotte Kerr, Thomas Reiner, Alexander Hegarth, Konrad Georg, Albert Hehn, Wolfgang Rahtjen, Hans Cossy, Willy Schäfer, Franz Schafheitlin, Emil Stöhr, Maurice Teynac, Erich Fritze, Paul Glawiion
written by Rolf Honold, W.G. Larsen, music by Peter Thomas, special effects by Werner Hierl, Jörg M.Kunsdorff, Theo Nischwitz, Vinzenz Sandner, Götz Weidner
Raumpatrouille/Raumschiff Orion
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Colonel Villa (Friedrich Joloff), chief of the secret service, has just
returned from outer space where he had survived an accident he shouldn't
have survived - but it seems that nobody but Commander McLane (Dietmar
Schönherr) of the Orion has grown suspicious by the slightest about this.
Even when Colonel Villa starts to issue orders designed to weaken earth's
defenses against an alien invasion, everybody thinks that's just fine and
dandy - so much so that McLane sends Tamara Jagellovsk (Eva Pflug),
originally his space patrol watchdog, to secret service headquarters to
investigate - and she is promptly arrested by Villa's men.
Nevertheless, Villa allows McLane to go to outer space to investigate
the scene of his accident, but gets McLane to take one of his men,
engineer Kranz (Wolf Harnisch), with him ... and once in outer space,
Kranz takes over the Orion from McLane at gunpoint, with the intention of
handing the ship and its advanced defense mechanism called Overkill over
to the Frogs, the alien invaders who are really already on their way to
earth - and thanks to Villa, who has been brainwashed by the Frogs, earth
is totally defenseless and the army learns about the invading fleet much
too late ...
But somehow, Villa and his men on earth can be overthrown while McLane
and crew can overcome Kranz, and just in time, McLane learns that the
entire alien invasion fleet is fed by a powersource situated on a nearby
asteroid - and once the asteroid is blown up using Overkill, everything is
alright again - and thus the earth is saved !!!
Within the world of German correctness, the story of this episode works
like a clockwork, and even scene after scene of dialogue don't necessarily
slow it down. However, the whole story is slightly marred by the totally
unimpressive alien spaceships that seriously look like paper airplanes and
totally lack the futuristic design of the Orion itself - which might sound
like a minor point, but an attack of paper airplanes just doesn't look in
the least bit frightening. The other thing that's keeping the episode from
coming into full effect is the climax (the blowing up of the asteroid and
demise of the alien fleet) itself that lasts a mere few seconds, while an
unnecessary ending in which McLane is promoted and he and Tamara confess
their love to each other takes up several minutes.
Still, despite its shortcomings, this last ever episode of Raumpatrouille
is definitely worth a look, at least for fans of campy 1960's science
fiction.
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