20. Season One, Episode Twenty - “Pidge’s Home Planet”

Doom Log File Title:  “Divide and Conquer” (Cossack’s Note: I’d have called this “Voltron Doesn’t Have A Leg to Stand On”)

Summary:  The Voltron Force finds out that Pidge’s home world, Balto, is under attack.  The Voltron Force guys get ready to take Voltron out to fight back, but Allura tells them not to go saying Voltron is needed there.  (Way to show that selfless heroic altruism crap that you GA guys are always going on about, Pinky.)  Coran and Nanny back her up and get downright pissy insisting that Voltron stay on Arus, and go so far as to put them under house arrest.  They in turn give the old geezer and the fat robeast the proverbial up yours and run off, leaving Allura whining as she watches them go.  Once they take off Coran gives them a “salute” (read: challenge my authori-tay, will you?) by firing at them, but sadly, he needs target practice just as much as our robots do when it comes to hitting Pidge.

While the Voltron Force guys take off for Balto, Zarkon, Lotor, and Haggar watch and muse about how they’re falling into their trap which is to have Lotor lure Voltron away and take out the four lions so they can pound Arus while Voltron’s not there to save the day and be rid of Voltron at the same time.  (Cossack’s note:  Why didn’t Haggar attack sooner, anyway?  Couldn’t she have dropped a robeast on the Castle of Lions while Lotor was messing around with the lions?  Our ships aren’t exactly slow and that coffin has earned her some intergalactic speeding tickets.)  Sounds good, right?  It does.  I have since ordered the job description of "Court Witch" to include "good time-management skills."

Anyway, when the Voltron Force gets to Balto, they aren’t there five minutes before Lotor opens up an attack on the four lions, whomps them around a bit, and then sends a robeast at them to do them in.  Unfortunately at this point Allura gets a psychic flash that they’re in trouble so she runs off to join them.  In typical Allura fashion, she shows up and gets clobbered worse than the others right off the bat, and they have to save her from Lotor.  Once she’s saved they quickly form Voltron, fight the robeast, and the next thing you know the robots are telling Lotor it’s all over and the fat Nanny’s singing on his grand plans.

The only saving grace is that the whole stinking planet blows up at the end, which means ideally there will be no more short and geeky GA pilots from Balto to annoy the piss out of us.  Heh, the whole Universe should be thanking us.  We performed a public service.

Notable Doom Highlights:  It looks promising for Lotor right up until the end.  His robeast snares Voltron in some cool energy tendrils and magnetizes him to a volcano.  Unfortunately Haggar apparently neglected to heat-proof this robeast so a stray shot of lava knocks it on its ass and breaks its force on Voltron, allowing him to escape.  Before you can say “asbestos armor needed” Voltron is up and using the BS to cleave the robeast into four square metal chunks.  Another noteworthy moment is Lotor’s attitude toward Allura.  This before he really fell in love with her, as evidenced by the way he remarks, “When Allura’s angry, she’s fascinating.  It’s a shame to end it now,” and blasts her.  The robots on Lotor’s ship also have a rather pragmatic outlook, one that I personally agree with: “It’s better to return home in disgrace than stay here and be blown to bits.”  Lotor’s response?  “You don’t have to face my father.”  Last but not least, we’re treated to a short but sweet Pidge electrocution scene which I always get a charge out of.  But then again, when it comes to Pidge abuse, how can you not?

Notes:  In the “military salute” mentioned earlier, the GA puts the spin on this that Coran did it in honor of their bravery, but personally I think that was about as much a salute as Lotor’s attacks on Zarkon were just “testing his reflexes.”  Let’s face it, he was firing at them for stealing the lions and the GA doesn’t want to admit it because that would be evidence that they aren’t all nice and merciful and selfless and all that other crap they go on about.  Also, the way Nanny and Coran nag Allura about marrying and producing heirs in the beginning of their footage of this incident is pretty interesting.  Seems that noble bloodline BS is universal.  Now if she’d just marry Lotor, wouldn’t that solve everyone’s problems?  Zarkon marries off his eldest son, Fat Cow, I mean Nanny gets her “baby” hitched up to a prince, and we don’t have to fight a big metal pain in the ass anymore because Arus legitimately joins our empire!  Works for me, anyway…

It's racism in action.  All this insipid nonsense about bluebloods, but look at us!  We ARE blue!  But nooo, "It's not the same thing.  You're evil!"  And then everyone wonders why I want to kill everyone.  If I was human, Lotor would've had no problem hitching Allura.  Damn crackers.

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