Voltron: Defender of the Universe

The people on Pollux are enjoying their hard-earned peace when suddenly! Doom ships appear and out comes a new foe, Cossack the Terrible, to terrorize the peasants. A young boy is sent to warn Sven as Cossock rounds up villagers to take as slaves. Meanwhile, Sven expresses his decision to not re-join the Voltron Force in favor of staying there with Romelle. Bandor then teases Romelle and Sven about being in love. The messenger boy shows up. Sven and Bandor ride off on horseback to confront Cossack while Romelle goes to warn the Voltron Force.

Cossack is berated by Zarkon and given one last chance to redeem himself for the last embarrassing defeat. After Zarkon exits, Lotor breezes in and talks big about overthrowing Zarkon.

On Doom, Lotor has enlisted slaves to build his super power base with which he hopes to overthrow his father, King Zarkon. Work is over when a Robeast bursts on the scene and destroys the building. It seems Zarkon was wise to the plans and ordered Haggar to do the dirty work, though she hints that she would not have done so if Lotor had just included her in the plan from the start.

Zarkon is annoyed at all the happiness on Arus, so in the dead of night, he sends out a Robeast to start destroying Arusian cities. The Castle's alert sirens go off and it isn't long before the VF launch into action. This crab-like Robeast is a real challenge. What's worse is they're hesitant to use Voltron as the monster insists on staying in the city where frightened Arusians could be hurt by the resulting battle. The VF try to lure the Robeast away but he won't budge, and Pidge only succeeds in getting his Lion skewered by the Robeast.

As the ep opens, Zarkon berates Haggar for their most recent failures. He blames the witch for making him look foolish, and she has the stones to reply with Thats not hard. Bwahahaha! Score one for the wart queen. She goes on to theorize that they've been losing so badly because the Robeasts have been weak after Voltron laid waste to their old Lazon factory on satellite Nuklon (referring to events in episode 45, One Princess to Another). Haggar reveals she's discovered a planet Zarkon's scouts have overlooked and that it's full of Lazon.

Opening on Planet Doom, Haggar is fixin' to force some hapless slave to magically meld with a fish to become some manner of hideous cross-breed. Lotor, hopped up on "mean potion", is simply enjoying the show. However, Lotor quickly becomes P.O.'ed when the resulting beast is not Robeast huge and angrily tells Haggar to throw it out.

On the way home from their latest mission, Hunk spots a planet that is home to some friends of his. He had met these kids on one of his first missions right out of the Space Explorer Academy. Hunk decides to take a vacation and visit them. Haggar and Cossack see a golden opportunity to isolate the Yellow Lion. They arrive on the planet and take the kids hostage. Cossack gives Hunk and ultimatum: Hand over the key to the Yellow Lion, or the kids have had it!

At the castle on Pollux, Bandor is signalling Sven with some flags. Sven lives in a little cottage across the way, and the flags are to tell him there's been a crash - of a ship with space gremlins. Romelle is preoccupied in the hopes that Sven is okay, and Bandor teases her about it.

This one takes place on Caspia, the most beautiful planet in the Cerulean quadrant. Cossack, Lotor and Haggar traveled out there for a lone robot. One that could lay waste to an army of regular doom robots. Their plan is to use these super robots to conquer Arus.

Cossack is all excited about Planet Oran, which has given the Alliance notice that it is pulling out. He tells Zarkon that now is the time to swoop in and take over, given the resources they could use on the planet for their own evil deeds. Cossack explains how the ruling general on Oran, Kruger, has built up such a defense system, he doesn't need the Alliance or Voltron to protect him. Zarkon sends Cossack off to capture the planet for him.

Sven returns to fly the Blue Lion one more time for the Voltron Force. This ep opens with spider ships from the rogue galaxy and shark ships as well, plundering and attacking helpless planets. It was finally known that Zarkon was behind the attacks as he'd allied himself with those in the Rogue Galaxy, and Doom claimed many planets for itself.

Zarkon is joining with more allies again, gaining a new armada and teaming up with Queen Merla. Zarkon eludes to having a very special trick up his sleeve.

Nobody on Doom knows exactly where Merla is from, and nobody really listens to Haggar when she insists Merla has mental powers of persuasion. Right on cue, Merla gets inside Zarkon's head, convincing him to put her in charge of conquering Arus. Merla takes Zarkon, Lotor, Cossack and Haggar inside her ship to show them her quarks - charmed quarks even (don't ask). Cossack and Haggar are skeptical that such things exist and Merla dares them to call her bluff by inviting Cossack to step inside one of the contraptions. Cossack is transported to another dimension and brought back, making a believer of Zarkon. Cossack is angry he got duped and both he and Haggar worry about the advantage Merla has over them with her mental abilities. Haggar already knows, for instance, that Merla has been tapping into Allura's dreams and worries about what she may have learned.

A young Arusian girl thinks back to Zarkon's invasion and how her boyfriend was taken as a slave then. She's missed him dearly ever since. We're shown that the man, Roe, is indeed enslaved on Doom within Zarkon's mines.

On Arus, a parade is going on complete with floats containing statues of all the important people like a dead king, a princess and an advisor...but no statues of the voltron force save for Keith. This doesn't sit well with the other four guys. Merla sits on Zarkon's throne plotting her next move on Arus. Haggar tries to sneak a mini-spider robeast in to attack Merla but her vulture pet comes to the rescue, giving Haggar a bitter taste of her own medicine. To keep Merla from putting her little robeast in the cosmotron - that contraption that makes stuff disappear - Haggar promises to help Merla defeat Voltron.

Coran is showing the Voltron Force space images of the planet Philos - an oddity in that it's a planet that orbits and acts like a comet. Ineterrupting their space lesson is a skull tank, which lands on Arus with a white flag raised. Though skeptical, the team has to check it out. Alliance guards escort the pilot of the tank out, which is an alien who claims to be from Philos. Lance wants to just lock him up right away, but Allura gives the stranger a chance.

On Doom, Merla is doling out shoulder massages to Zarkon (a little FIL kink, eh?) and it seems Haggar is jealous. She reminds Zarkon about when she was just as young and beautiful - though it was more than 1,000 years ago - as well as reminds him of all her evil deeds in those years. Zarkon is unimpressed given Voltron is still a thorn in his side.

On Doom, Haggar has developed another of her unstoppable robeasts. But this time she tests it on a Voltron clone she built, and shows Merla how the Robeast is able to handle Voltron's best defenses, including his blazing sword. Zarkon is out of the loop on this one, and Merla can't wait to defeat Voltron without him.

This one opens at the Castle of Lions, where the team and Coran are discussing the wide revolt going on against Zarkon. Oppressed people are finally rising up and fighting back against Zarkon - and winning! It's pretty sad when Doomies are losing to a bunch of kids or slaves riding silly looking "horse-a-roos". Yikes. The team decides that, even though they're a defensive unit, now is the time to strike Zarkon if only to free his slaves. Zarkon arrives back on Doom and is dismayed that his forces are too busy fighting to welcome their King. Then it goes from bad to worse as the Lions show up and form Voltron. Zarkon decides, after a bunch of his robot fighters are defeated, that he needs to vanquish Voltron himself. However, Lotor has taken his battle ship with the intentions of doing the vanquishing, getting the glory and ultimately, his father's throne. Zarkon's new mission, therefore, is to teach Lotor a lesson. However, Merla tries to talk Lotor out of going as she geniunely doesn't want to see him destroyed. Lotor balks at the show of emotion as she tries to reason with him and leaves anyway. Merla is left confused by the failure of her evil powers and the fact that she's not feeling so evil at all anymore.

Merla is sitting in her Castle and thinking she can never match the goodness of the Voltron force. Then, Lotor bursts in even though only females are allowed on Merla's planet. He says he's come to thank her for saving him. At first, she doesn't think he's sincere. But soon she's swept up in memories of their engagement and the thought of his little nephews running around all cute, with their pointy ears. Lotor vows to prove his love by helping Voltron. Merla is worried but also annoyed that Cossack is tagging along with Lotor on the mission.