Voltron: The Legendary Defender (S5)

There was a time when a "season" of a show had a pretty clear meaning to me. For most, it seemed to be 26 episodes - one for a new weekly episode for half the year that could then be rerun the other half. There were some exceptions, but back then they were usually on the generous side, like a 52 episode season or some such. Now, seasons seem most commonly around 13 episodes, but sometimes there might be more, or less. Show seem to fluctuate so much that the term "season" is largely meaningless, especially when they might be released all at once or in blocks and be in reruns after a week or two. With shows released in online streaming media, you often get a "season" dropping all at once.

Which brings me back to Voltron: TLD, which split up an intended third season into a 7-episode season three and a 6-episode season four. And now there's another 6-episode season five.  It doesn't feel like the show has really earned claim to five seasons yet. That said, there has been progress made. A lot in some cases. I just feel like it could have been done more gracefully without the abbreviated seasons.

The paladins of Voltron undergo some roster rejiggering along the way, reflecting without fully copying previous incarnations of the show. I'm a little put off by Keith's leaving of the team - though I'm not sure if it's more because of his absence there or because of how slow his own arc seems to be going slowly (though S5 finally gets somewhere with that). The show is still a little slow to acknowledge seeds it plants (Haggar, Shiro's escapes, etc.). It's ramping up Lotor's presence, putting him in an interesting place of being maybe-not-a-bad-guy. I worry in his case that he might veer toward cartoony evil rather than remaining just cocky and manipulative.

I'm not sure if it's just me, but the characters felt a little flatter visually this season. I hope I'm imagining that and it's not a sign of falling budget and/or a spiral toward cancellation. I rather like the series.

Comments

  1. RedwolfMarch 14, 2018 at 7:37 AM

    I should add, since it was on my mind, that the timeline bugs me. It often does in stories like this. "Thousands of years" is an awful long time whether you're talking about far-flung future societies or a nation of fantasy elves. Even giving time for a galaxy-spanning empire to form, that is sooo much time.

    Here, they talk about a Galrah rite of succession like it's no big thing. It's said to be a tradition spanning some 13 millennia and 33 emperors. That means the Galrah were an expansionist empire for some 3000 years prior to the time of Voltron. Okay, sure, maybe. We don't really know how long Galrah normally live, though "centuries" seems possible. And then Zarkon gets corrupted, destroys that alliance, and rules for 10,000 years...

    That's where you get into questions about why their technology doesn't seem to be any more advanced, really, when they've been expanding and under solid leadership all that time. A trading bazaar has become a mall in that time. Ooooo. That could happen in 5-100 years. Thousands get into rise and fall of entire civilizations...

    And culturally? Seriously, after 10,000 years with one seemingly-immortal ruler, any "traditional" succession rite would be a footnote in a dusty archive remembered as vague legend, at best.

    Okay, I'm sort of nitpicking, but I feel like a little consideration could have led to the story going the same way without raising questions like that which can take me out of the world.

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