Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defender - Season 3 Episodes 4-7

We’re back, so let’s finish off season 3 of Voltron

Hole in the Sky

The Castle’s picked up a distress beacon and it has Allura and Coran a little speechless, it’s an old Altean distress code. Allura wonders if they not be the last Alteans, and she’s right, but it’s not time for that yet. They find a ship, stuck in some sort of rift, which they soon discover is emitting quintessence.  Allura believes that Voltron is strong enough to travel through, and of course they’re right.

They travel through, and go from detecting nothing aboard the ship to detecting multiple lifeforms, so the group head into the front half of the ship and begin exploring. Allura manages to restore power to ship, and they soon find the decaying skull of the ship’s captain. They access logs saying the captain found a comet fragment and was en-route back to Altea.

They’re soon attacked by assailants, one of whom looks suspiciously like Slav, and after a brief fight the other turns out to be Shiro, or rather Sven, a direct reference to the character from the original Voltron series. Also, Josh Keaton is doing a weird accent, I’m guessing that’s also a reference. They quickly conclude they’re in an alternate reality, but Slav doesn’t seem to bothered about the dead Alteans, in fact he advises the others to run when they discover the prospect of being boarded by more Alteans.

The leader of the group sees Princess Allura and addresses her as ‘Empress’ and bows before her. Turns out Empress Allura is long dead in their universe, but she vanquished the Galra and set up the Altean Empire. And if you realise that in fiction, everything called an Empire is bad news, you’ve probably guessed where this is going, if the whole Slav/Sven thing didn’t already make that obvious.

We cut back to Lotor’s ship, as you probably guess it’s he who instigated the distress signal. He’d been trying to pull the ship through the void, and get the comic but had failed, Voltron has passed through, it’ll either come back with the comet, which Lotor plans to steal from them, or won’t come back at all, which would also be considered a win.

Pidge studies the comet, and assess that it’s made of the same material as Voltron. One of the Alteans suggests they could create their own ships with it, passing through realities and spreading their peace through it. The General we find out is called Hira, who’s guiding a tour with Keith and Allura. Meanwhile Sven and Slav are planting devices across the ship. Slav hopes it’ll work and suspects the others will coin onto what’s happening.

And soon the scientist coins them onto a secret, they’ve been technologically subjugating warring races to force them to live peacefully, sapping their will so they’d submit to theirs. This immediately puts Hunk, Lance and Pidge on edge, so when Sven and Slav find them and say they have a plan in motion, they’re happy to join but are soon confronted by Altean soldiers.

Keith is trying to keep a level head, but Allura’s excitement has made her blind to the problems of the empire’s particular methods, especially with the promise of new allies for their fight. Allura takes control of the ship and brings it fully into their reality. But at this point the others or brought to the bridge and it brings Allura’s mind back into the game. 

She defeats Hira and they all head out thanks to the explosives Slav and Sven had planted earlier. On the way to the Lions, they’re attacked and Sven takes a shot for Lance. Sven says he’ll be fine, if he gets to a ‘space hospital’ in a direct reference to the original Voltron

In GoLion, Shiro who became Sven in the original Voltron, died. Because death isn’t for children according to Saban, despite Disney movies existing at this point, in Voltron, which used GoLion footage, Sven muttered a line about space hospital before never being seen again.

With Slav providing a distraction, they get back to their Lions and recover the comet, and despite the lousy shots from the Alteans, they make it through the portal back to their own reality. Unfortunately, they’re knocked unconscious in the process and Lotor uses that opportunity to take the comet, which makes Allura uneasy.

It’s a good episode but a little rushed, could’ve done with some extra time to flesh out the alternate reality

Rating 7/10

The Journey

You think there’s been enough time for Keith as the leader to be ingrained into the status quo? Too bad, this episode mark’s Shiro’s return. Shiro wakes up on a Galra ship, weak and hazy, and with long hair now. He sees himself being tortured with Operation Kuron stages 1 and 2. He fights off some Galra sentries before taking an escape pod, which is then shot down. The ship commander wants to report that Operation Kuron stage 3 is underway.

Shiro awakens from the shipwreck and just about escapes before the ship falls over the edge of a cliff into oblivion. Haggar summons General Raht, telling him to keep a close watch on Lotor, since he leads them down a slippery path or something. Problem is we haven’t seen him do much of anything, leadership wise, since the second episode.

Shiro walks through the snow and finds himself in a cave, using his Galra hand to cauterise his wounds. He continues on and sees an Oasis in the snow, a creature approaches, Shiro is eventually pinned down by it but he gets an assist from a couple of locals. He wakes up, tied to the ceiling and we find out the locals are in fact freedom fighters who suspect Shiro of having betrayed his own kind to the Galra.

Maybe of note is the smaller, and evidently smarter, of the two, Vakala, is voiced by Matthew Moy, who plays Lars in Steven Universe. Shiro tries to convince them of his identity but they don’t believe him and leave him hanging.

On Lotor’s ship, they’ve detected an anomaly and Lotor wants it found, it’s general Raht. Lotor uses heat detection to locate the ship and fire around it, eventually they capture it in a tractor beam and bring it aboard. Vakala, and Remdax are listening to broadcasts from the Galra, including one about Lotor needing support on Thayserix and a Galra cruiser about to pass overhead but, as they’re logging them, Shiro escapes.

They try and stop him, and he manages to subdue them long enough to get them to listen. But they only have a shuttle designed to dock with Low orbiting ships, their only chance is to dock with the incoming Galra ship. They give Shiro an opening and he manages to take off, the ship is destroyed but with Shiro’s helmet providing air, he’s able to make it aboard as the ship jumps into the battle. He takes a Galra shuttle but Voltron is making a retreat, and he soon loses visual.

Shiro stays in the shuttle for a week, running out of fuel and oxygen, he falls asleep and thinks about all that’s happened, connecting enough for the Black Lion for Keith to find him.

There’s no doubt that this is a good episode, but it’s placement is perplexing, and really should’ve been the episode to kick off the next season.

Rating 8/10

Tailing a Comet

Team Voltron are infiltrating a Galra base, Lance is providing covering fire whilst the others fight to computer terminal, so she can shut the base down. Keith and Shiro are theorising about what happened, they’re both wrong, but season 6 will get to that. Shiro has had a quick haircut but seems to be nursing a hell of a headache.

Thanks to Pidge, they’ve discovered Lotor is located in the Va’Kar quadrant, but needing to narrow down the location further, her and Hunk get to work create a scanner to detect the energy signature of the Lions. I guess Shiro all filled in, would’ve been nice to see that but…

Lance goes to see Keith, he’s worried that with Shiro back, he doesn’t really have a place as part of Voltron. Keith tells him to focus on the missions and not worry about that for now, not exactly solid advice, but it cheers Lance up. I do like this scene, if anything it shows that Lance does have some humility. Hunk and Pidge have finished their scanner and detect the comet, they manage to catch up with it in the Ulippa system, in a Galra base

Keith and Shiro both start giving a plan, and we see a leadership conflict that doesn’t really have a satisfying resolution because of what’s coming up. Keith relinquishes leadership to Shiro, but they find that instead of the comet being transferred from the ship, the ship begins firing at the base. Keith tells Shiro he can take the Black Lion but the Black Lion is less sure. Shiro calls in Keith to lead and they’re soon on the ground. The base is run by commander Throk, the general who fought against Lotor in the first episode of this season.

Lotor’s general storm the command centre as the Paladins storm the ship, finding their way to the comet. Lotor’s general takes control of Throk, getting him to turn off deactivate security, and retract the roof, revealing a piece of the teladuv used in the s2 finale. The Paladins find the comet, it’s already been moulded into a ship. 

And the next bit is a problem, Keith says they need to go after Lotor, Shiro says they need to destroy the ship, everyone sides with Shiro and Keith elects to search for Lotor along. The problem is you don’t know that Lotor is even here, so Keith’s idea is dumb and this showcases his weak leadership. If this season is about him growing as a leader, it’d be better idea to have him be strong enough as a leader to stand to Shiro. As it is, we’ll have a while to wait before then.

On their way out, they encounter Lotor’s generals and their unique abilities give them an edge, Keith recognises one of them as the woman he rescued in the last season from the weblum. They manage to get away and back to the Lions, the cruiser picks up the teladuv, but before the castle can fire upon it, the ship is launched and begins to attack, easily breaking through the particle barrier. 

And the new moral dilemma approaches, they can either destroy the ship, or the cruiser with the teladuv. They are about to destroy the teladuv but the ship is about to fire, Keith makes the last minute decision to fly up so the shot misses them and hits the teladuv instead. Before they can fire on the ship though, the ship fires another shot and incapacitates them long enough to get away.

So, the lecture from Shiro. Keith’s decision making was the only reason they got anything close to a victory in that battle, so Shiro’s words about choosing battles come off hollow. Throk is brought to Haggar and tortured to Lotor’s amusement.

It’s a decent episode, but again feels too early.

Rating 7.5/10

The Legend Begins

To cap off s3 we get an origin story for Voltron

We start with Haggar trying to revive Zarkon with her magic, and getting flashes of the past.

With the crew needing more information about the comet, they press Coran into giving them more of the history of Voltron.

Turns out the Paladins of old were initial brought together under a peace agreement, but it ultimately grew into a friendship, and they began fighting alongside each other against the other evils that plagued their worlds. Zarkon and the Galra are from a planet called Daibazaal and I just thank the stars they didn’t name the species after the planet, something that feels a little common in space fairing shows like this. The other paladins were King Alfor, Gyrgan from Rygnirath, Trigel of the Dalterion Belt and Blaytz from Nalquod. I have no idea what these planets are.

As they’re feasting, a comet lands on Daibazaal, King Alfor begins an analysis of the comet, made of a material that passes through realities, they move the comet and find a white void, we’ll later know this as the quintessence field, and we’re introduced to Honerva, an Altean along with a cat that looks similar to one used by one of Lotor’s generals.

She’s been summoned by Alfor to head up the scientific investigation into the rift. Time passes and Zarkon appears to be kinder and is even engaged to be married to Honerva. Also, it’s around this point Allura is born as well. They find the quintessence can power things pretty much indefinitely and can be key to clean energy across the system. A weird purple creature from the neighbouring reality arrives in a tube, responding to a signal Honerva had sent, Alfor warns her to exercise caution.

Unfortunately, Alfor is proven right as a massive swarm of the creatures emerge through the rift, they quickly erect a particle barrier around them but that can only buy them time. The plan to stop them is the 5 lions. Soon the creatures escape and merge into a giant, the Lions attack but don’t seem to be doing much, so Alfor suggests they fly in formation and they form Voltron, eventually using his sword to defeat it. Alfor suggests they close the rift, but Zarkon isn’t having it.

None the less, they fought side-by-side an ushered in a new era of peace, but things aren’t looking great back on Daibazaal, the planet is being torn apart by the rift. Honerva’s cat had been treated with quintessence and Honerva now sees it as the key to life, and a need to expand it, Alfor wants no part of this and storms off as Honerva falls ill, craving quintessence.

Zarkon begs the paladins to help him close the rift, unfortunately he was tricking them into making the gateway bigger so he could take Honerva through. The creatures start attacking and knock Zarkon and Honerva to a state where they’re presumed dead. With the rift now bigger, Alfor elects to evacuate Daibazaal and destroys the planet in order to close the rift.

Now, here’s the bit where I have to ask ‘how could Coran have known this?’ Zarkon wakes up and promises vengeance on Alfor, which he gains, when he killed him and destroyed Altea. Haggar begins to remember her old life as Honerva and wakes up Zarkon.

It’s an interesting episode, but not really one suited to a season finale. But then, it really wasn't supposed to be

Rating 7.5/10