The show tells the story of Commander Cliff Allister McLane (Dietmar Schönherr), an Earth starship captain and his loyal crew.

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.

Much designer furniture was also 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.

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.

[3] 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.

[4] 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".

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.

The storyline was about the invasion and attacks of the Frogs, the term now becoming an acronym for "Feindliche Raumverbände ohne galaktische Seriennummer" (roughly Hostile Space Combat Units Without Galactic Serial Identification Number).