Viewer Log: Voltron ep 7

Space. The Final Frontier. There are a lot of weird stuff out there among the stars. But the weirdest concept is the sentient planet. An entire world that is self-aware, feels pain, and can affect its landscape. Can you imagine if earth worked like that? I doubt fracking and deforestation would be a problem if ol’ Gaia could put her two sense in. What? I think of the planet as a female. So sue me. Let’s get to it.

We open to Team Voltron planning to liberate the Balmera, and argue about who has the most accurate laser gun sound effects. Shiro is closest, in my opinion. Their plans are complicated by the fact the Balmera is alive and feels pain, so shooting the surface is kind of a no go. It’d be like shooting any living thing, it’d end badly. They come up with a plan to draw the Gulra out of the tunnels, fight them in the sky, and then fly in and free the rest of them once the Gulra were scrap. They use specialized scanning tech to determine how many Gulra and Balmerans are in the tunnel, to make things run more smoothly. Pidge plans to fly in, while using her new camouflage tech she outfitted the Green Lion with, to drop the probs.

Such a smug grin. Always glad to see it wiped off his face.

The guys start shooting the Gulra installations. This gives them a chance to show off their weapons. Black has a special jaw blade it can use to slice things. Red had a magma cannon, for melting. And Blue has an Ice Beam, for freezing. Red and Blue use their respective beams to melt a guard tower and the freeze it in place so it won’t hurt the Balmera. Despite the damage they cause, no Gulra fly out to stop them. They’re drawn deeper, since they detected Gulra fighters deeper inside and the prisoners too. The team breaks up, Keith and Lance go to take out the fighters, while the others go in to save the prisoners. Everything is so easy, from disabling the fighter ships to freeing the prisoners, it’s obviously a trap, and yet they have no other choice but to fall into it.

Hunk frees the Balmerans, Rox (still a dick) tells them that the Gulra took Shay to the core of the Balmera. Everyone knows that this is a trap, but… heroes. They can’t not fall into a trap to save someone. Everyone is drawn in, and, shockingly, the trap is sprung. The group assumed that the Gulra were going to ambush them at the core, where they were Lion-less and unable to fight back due to the danger of damaging the Balmera. Instead, the Gulra just lock them in the core and go to steal the Lions. The Gulra prefer the direct approach. So… The Paladins are locked in the heart of a planet, the Lions are vulnerable without their paladins, and the Castle of Lions is stuck against an armada. Not a great day. But, thankfully, Shay uses her Balmera Whispering powers to get her people to give them a hand. Rox, dick, reveals that he was the one that tipped off the Gulra, but convinces the rest of the Balmerans to help the Voltron Paladins. Less of a Dick.

The heart of a living planet.

In the Heart of the Gulra Empire, Prorock assures his Emperor that they’ll have the Voltron Lions in a manner of hours, but Zarkon isn’t convinced. The alien dictator is confident that Prorock has underestimated the Lions and their Paladins. On the Balmera, a warship joins the fight, and all hope seems lost. Thankfully, the Paladins are freed thanks to the Balmerans and just barely make it back to their Lions in time. Again, those forcefields the Lions project are useless. The five robot cats smash the Gulra fighters. The Castle takes a pretty huge hit from the warship, which gives the team enough time to form Voltron for the first time in like four episodes. They’re able to smash the Gulra Warship and 97% of the fighters in one fell swoop.  Prorock is rather “embarrassed” at this failure, but Zarkon doesn’t seem more than annoyed. Back with the team, we see why. Just when the take a breath another Gulra space-casket, bearing a Robeast, crashes.

Now, normally, episodes were the ‘surprise’ is so <blanking> obvious bore me but this one is decent. The humor makes up for a lot of the predictability throughout this episode. Heroes making laser gun noises, what other show does that? Keith and Lance are always good for a few yuks. And Hunk is great, especially with his self-deprecating humor. “This has got to be a trap. There’s no way I’m that good a shot.” This episode is meant to play up the next one, which it does. I really like the design of the Robeast’s caskets. Really unique means of transportation and just really, really creepy. Next time, episode 8 and our new Robeast Battle. 

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