Watching Voltron - Seasons 3-5

*Spoilers for seasons 3-5*

Seasons 3-5 contains fewer episodes/running time than the first two seasons. In fact, I don’t think calling them seasons is fair. They are more like six-episode arcs that are spread across a calendar year, rather than real seasons. Call me old-fashioned (or one of those millennials), but I don’t think a TV season can or should be shorter than a non-extended cut version of a Lord of the Rings movie.

I enjoyed the start of Voltron enough to continue with the rest of the series. Just a warning, this review assumes a vague familiarity with the show, so if you haven’t watched it, at least read my first Voltron review so you aren’t totally lost.  

Characters

The only new major character introduced in season three is Lotor – the half-sympathetic, half-antagonist son of the evil emperor. And in my opinion, he is the perfect Slytherin. He is cunning and ambitious to the core and puts his desires/goals, which may be good or bad or neither, that’s still unclear, above anything else, including loyalty. Also, he has great animated hair. He looks like a purple Legolas which I wholeheartedly approve of.

Purple Legolas

Matt, Pidge’s older brother, was also introduced in season four and I have found him nothing but an enjoyable side character.

As for the other characters, Lance has gotten markedly better, although he and Allura still vie for “worst of the lot” in my book. My opinions about basically all the other characters are the same as before except for Shiro who is a giant complicated mess now.

Shipping

Its funny, because if I didn’t know there was such a huge shipping culture around this show or hadn’t encountered it before I watched the show, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to even think about shipping in relation to Voltron. But there is and I did, so here are my thoughts now.

Lotor can seduce basically any of the paladins, and I’ll be down for it. Lotura is fine, but I think Lotor/Lance or Lotor/Coran would make for some great, entertaining scenarios. I also very low-key ship Matt and Allura, mostly because I like Matt a lot and in canon he has a crush on Allura. However, even after season five, I still have no real investment in any ships.

Giant Questions

*Again, this is going to be filled with spoilers*

The main, gigantic mechanical lion in the room is wtf is going on with Shiro. We know it’s something. The version of Shiro that appeared half-way through season three after he disappeared at the end of season two is different. He's probably a clone, and definitely controlled or manipulated by Haggar (a main antagonist) in some way. But that leaves many details unanswered. I do wonder whether if Keith hadn't gone off on his own adventure then maybe the weirdness with Shiro would have been noticed sooner. Inquiring minds want to know.

Also, how on earth did Haggar forget who she was in the first place? I get 10,000 years is a long time, but Zarkon didn’t forget his entire past. How do you forget having a child? Did she forget she was married too? The memory loss and re-emergence seems bizarre to me.

Conclusions

I am so glad the Pidge arc has concluded and she found her missing family members! And that they are awesome in their own right. After Matt emerged I figured it would take a while before they found their dad, but its nice to see one major plot thread from the very beginning neatly tied up.

Also, thank goodness they finally acknowledged Earth and are taking messages to their families. The amount of time that has passed since the beginning of the show is unclear, but still, it’s been long enough that I can confidently say it’s about time their families got some answers. I do think its odd that Lance suddenly has a bunch of siblings that have never been mentioned or even hinted at in four seasons, but ret-conning does happen.

Final conclusion: Season six is coming out in June and I will definitely watch it, but I’ll probably forget when it comes out between now and then and watch it when bored on a weekend after Netflix reminds me there are new episodes. It's that kind of show for me.