VLD8x11 – “Uncharted Regions”
8x11 – “Uncharted Regions”
This episode title doesn’t seem to me to have any relevance to this episode. The only thing I can guess is that the uncharted regions are supposed to be the other realities that Honerva is looking into? The moment where she looks into other realities is so brief though. None of this episode actually takes place somewhere that no one has been though. It’s actually the opposite: most of this episode in a well-known location: where Altea used to be. If it’s not a reference to the brief moment of Honerva looking into other realities, then I have no idea why the episode is titled what it is.
I have plenty of problems with this episode, but at least it isn’t as confusing as the last two episodes.
The episode starts with Honerva, just like she did as her Haggar persona, standing around in the middle of a room. She gasps. I guess she is now awareness that the Paladins were in her mind? Meanwhile, on, the bridge of the pyramid – because the pyramid, ancient building on Oriande that has existed since the ancient Alteans, now has a bridge because it’s spontaneously been retconned to be a ship. I guess those ancient Alteans knew that one day Honerva was going to want to steal the pyramid from Oriande and made sure her staff could operate it as a ship to do so. In other words, this feels contrived to me. The pyramid is travelling through a wormhole.
Honerva tells Merla to take the pyramid to a certain location, saying that the Paladins knowing of their plans is providing them with an opportunity to do something. What this opportunity is is never elaborated on. Maybe it’s reference to Honerva’s eventually possessing the Colony Alteans on the Atlas to drain the Atlas’s crystal of its energy? That ultimately fails though, so if that was what Honerva’s statement was written to be referencing, then having her make this statement is a narrative dead end.
Allura is unconscious in the medical bay on the Atlas. Keith says that Honerva used the entity against Allura. I still think it’s all totally ridiculous. Honerva is supposed to be possessed by the entity and thus not to blame for the abuse, torture, and genocide she’s done over the past 10,000 years. That would require that the entity to be controlling her. But then, we have moments like this where the show says that Honerva can control the entity. If Honerva can control the entity, then she is in control, meaning, she is responsible for her actions. By writing Honerva to be able to control the entity, the show undermines its own absolution of Honerva’s behavior.
Shiro calls the Paladins to the bridge to tell them that, while they’ve been unable to detect Honerva since Oriande, they can now. Once again, they found her through detecting her creating a wormhole. So, does that mean that Honerva, the Colony Alteans still with her, and the pyramid have all been just hanging out in a wormhole the entire time? If not, then she/the pyramid would have to have entered the wormhole in order to be able to now exit the wormhole, so the Atlas should have been able to detect the entrance wormhole whenever the pyramid first entered it. Shiro says that the Atlas won’t be able to get to where they detected Honerva’s wormhole while Allura’s unconscious. By making Allura a Paladin instead of keeping her in an admiral-like position and have her in command of the Atlas the way she was in command of the Castle for the first two seasons, the show has had to deal with how the show had established that Allura is the source of power for the creation of wormholes. The method the show used to deal with it was mostly to ignore it whenever it was convenient to do so. The Atlas didn’t need Allura when it opened a wormhole at the end of 8x06 “Genesis,” for example. So, having it be a limitation that they need Allura now really does feel contrived.
Also, they have located Honerva due to her using a wormhole. Anyone remember how the narrative established the reason the Paladins were going into Honerva’s mind was to locate her because she hadn’t done anything to reveal her location? So, the reason the show gave for everything the Paladins did in the “Knights of Light” two-parter was a giant lie. The show could have just had the reason be wanting to know what Honerva’s plan was as justification for the Paladins doing what they did, but the show explicitly presented the reason as being finding Honerva’s location. The Paladins never learned anything about Honerva’s location while in her mind. Also, now trying to find her location being the reason for going into her mind is undermined by having them find Honerva by the old method of wormhole detection. I’m sure someone would argue, well, going into her mind caused her to reveal herself because she wants to lay a trap for Team Voltron. But what is that trap? There’s nothing about what happens in this episode that unfolds as a trap, everything that happens is just the next step in Honerva’s on-going plan. This is all really sloppy writing.
Honerva goes in a room and stares at Sincline, talking to Lotor. I guess maybe she’s just talking to the air as if he was there with her. But if she’s talking to Sincline because she still has Lotor’s melted corpse on Sincline, then that is so gross. I don’t know what the executive producers and writers were thinking having Lotor’s body revealed last episode like they did. The fact that it was done in a still frame instead of fuller animation could be cited as part of a potential re-edit of the season. I would still like to know how Sincline was seemingly operated very much consciously and clearly by Lotor in 8x06 “Genesis” if he’s dead and his corpse is melted as it was shown last episode.
So, Honerva boards her mecha, the one that it seemed like Lotor was piloting in the dream that Allura had in 8x08 “Clear Day.” This mecha has a set of crystal? wings that turn into a circle and starts spinning. The inner non-crystal structure of this wings-circle structure makes me think of the giant teludav (which didn’t look anything even remotely like the teludav that was onboard the Castle of Lions) that Team Voltron used against Zarkon in 2x12 “Best Laid Plans.” As the wings-circle spins, different images appear in the circle. So, this is when Honerva looks for and chooses what she thinks is her perfect reality? So then, why were alternate realities visible during what she did on Oriande in “Genesis?” Why was she in that episode doing something that revealed other realities if all she was doing then was getting Sincline out of the rift between realities? Neither Sincline nor Voltron ever went into other realities when they went into the rift in 6x07 “Defender of All Universes.” So, that moment in “Genesis” then was just contrived and inconsistent with previous story.
The Atlas is having a staff meeting. Shiro, the Paladins, Coran, Veronica, Curtis, Iverson, Slav, Sam, Romelle, the MFE pilots, Krolia, Kolivan, and Axca are all in attendance. Keith states the basics of Honerva’s plan: Use the Sincline, made out of the transreality comet, to go to another reality. Pidge says, “The problem is the transreality ore has been travelling between realities for millions of years, and it’s a naturally occurring phenomenon. What Honerva is doing is forcing that process to happen, which could have catastrophic side effects on this and any reality she travels through.” I appreciate that they’re at least trying to pretend there’s something different about what Honerva’s doing that makes what she’s doing a threat, but it still doesn’t work for me. What delineates the difference between natural occurrence and applied use? Is the ore sentient and knows someone is using it compared to when it’s doing it on its own? The specific ore that Sincline is made of held open a rift from this reality through the rift between realities into another reality for 10,000 years and nothing reality-ending happened. Voltron went into that reality for some time and nothing reality-ending happened. (3x04 “Hole in the Sky”) Sincline entered and exited the rift many times during the battle of “Defender of All Universes,” and that only presented as a danger to this reality. Why the rifts that Sincline created then didn’t close once Sincline had finished passing through the opened rift makes no sense since the rift in “Hole in the Sky” closed as soon as the comet’s material was removed from the rift opening. All this seems to me to be a failing to properly and consistently define the rules of magic for this story. The creative team wanted to not feel restricted in what they could have happen if they created structure and rules and followed them as rules, so they kept everything as undefined as possible, and that’s now led to having the events that are happening conflict with past events. That makes the supposed threat the story is now presenting feel hollow.
Krolia says there’s a Galra fleet nearby. This is such a weak attempt to bring the Galra back into the story here at the end when the story has definitively set aside the Galra as finished. Krolia says that this fleet has a zaiforge cannon. This zaiforge cannon (from what I remember during my original watching of these incredibly confusing episodes) is never used in these episodes. The writers of this show would seem to be unacquainted with the idea of Chekhov’s gun then. Don’t reference a zaiforge cannon in the narrative background unless specifically using that zaiforge cannon is part of the future plot. Keith tells Krolia and Kolivan to take Lahn and try to convince the Galra to join them.
I really don’t like that Keith is leading this meeting. The show took the position of Black Paladin unceremoniously and without any actual explanation away from Shiro and gave it to Keith. Joaquim Dos Santos did so while trying to pretend that Shiro was getting something even better in commanding the Atlas. But here, Shiro’s not even being allowed to lead his own staff meetings. Everything is being done by Keith because that has been the single-most important goal for JDS and Lauren Montgomery: Keith as the head of everything. They lied when they pretended that they weren’t sidelining Shiro. This is a perfect example of how what they’ve done to Shiro’s character in the past two seasons has been explicitly about sidelining him. They weren’t allowed to kill him, so they did what they could to diminish his presence and effect on the story as much as possible. They turned Shiro, once one of the two main characters of this show, into a total unimportant background character. It’s infuriating. They should have never created Shiro’s character in the first place then. But, they created him specifically to kill him off. That had been their desire for Shiro: Kill him to produce the ascendency of Keith. It is amazing to think that they specifically created Shiro’s character to kill him. And then, to have Shiro be a person of color, a person with a disability, and a queer person, that they thought they could kill him to benefit the straight, white, able-bodied Keith is a manifestation of the EPs’ and the writers’ privilege. For all their claims about being pro-inclusion and pro-representation of diverse characters, they really haven’t been. Diversity on this show has always been peripheral, at best.
Sam says he and Slav have been working on prototype upgrades to the Atlas’s weapons. Installing new, untested weapons, especially ones that Sam says they’re not even sure how they’re going to provide power to, right before going into a battle is not a reasonable idea, not that this show cares about having characters act realistically. (And the upgrade ultimately doesn’t happen before battle anyway.) Pidge volunteers to help Sam and Slav. Coran says there’s a convenient nearby Balmera for more power, Hunk says they can take the Yellow Lion, and Coran says he wants Romelle to go too because he’s “been training her in Altean customs. She’ll be quite helpful in communicating with the Balmera.” Allura’s previous communication with a Balmera was presented as something unique to Allura because of her ability to manipulate quintessence. Since when did Romelle gain the ability to manipulate quintessence? This communication can’t be something that’s just an “Altean custom,” otherwise Coran himself could do it. This all just feels like this show is trying to find things they can say these characters are doing so they can pretend these characters are part of the final story arc.
The Atlas staff meeting ends and the Captain of the Atlas, Shiro, never speaks even once.
Lance and Keith have what’s supposed to be a big, personal conversation. It’s clear what the creative team views as being the main character and his best friend character are talking in this scene. It’s a standard trope of a scene. For me though, it just marks how much this show has taken being the main character away from Shiro. Shiro used to be Keith’s best friend, and now, the series can’t even have Keith and Shiro have a conversation, let alone a personal one. If all you saw was this episode, you would not believe that moments like Keith’s fighting Zarkon specifically in defense of Shiro in 1x13 “The Black Paladin” and 2x13 “Blackout,” Keith’s upset over Shiro’s death in 3x01 “Changing of the Guard,” his desperate pursuit and attempt to save Shiro in 6x05 “The Black Paladins,” and all the flashbacks in 7x01 “A Little Adventure” were a part of the story. There’s nothing between Keith and Shiro here at the end of the story, where, because it was such an integral part of Keith’s character up until the last two seasons, you would think that now would be when their friendship was maximized. But their friendship is nonexistent now.
I really hate what this show became. The creative team had something great, and they sacrificed what made this show great in order to turn the show into something mediocre, at best.
Romelle tells the Colony Alteans that she’s going. The other Alteans worry about their still having an entity in them and being manipulated by Honerva; in other words, they’re going to eventually be manipulated by Honerva. Tova, however, since he’s no longer possessed, offers to go with Romelle. Since these specific Colony Alteans can manipulate quintessence, they could have had Tova stay on the Atlas as the wormhole operator, thereby freeing Allura up from having to do both that and pilot the Blue Lion, but no.
There’s a scene full of technobabble between Pidge, Sam, and Slav. It doesn’t feel like it really adds much. It gives some parameters of their planned upgrades, but those details are in no way crucial.
Team Balmera and Team Zeiforge Cannon depart from the Atlas. Veronica announces there’s another wormhole signature, and Shiro expositions that it’s the fifth one detected in the last hour. No pattern to these wormholes has been determined. Iverson wonders aloud if Honerva is sending out the Robeasts again, and Keith responds, “It could be, or it could be her.” This line has no meaning. It could be her… what? This episode never reveals what these additional wormholes were about.
Keith is standing right here on the bridge, right beside Shiro, and yet, they don’t talk to each other. They don’t even talk in the most perfunctory ways. It’s like they don’t even see each other. This scene helps make the nonexistence of their relationship, when their relationship had been the strongest one in the entire show, even more glaringly noticeable.
Curtis and Veronica realize that the Atlas has a “long range scout” in the area of Honerva’s location. How? The show has established that it would take a long time, too long, for the Atlas to get to where Honerva is. How is it that the Atlas is able to have a scout ship in that location if the Atlas can’t get itself to the location? This is blatantly contrived from the perspective of transportation. Also, if this scout ship is in Honerva’s location, then why didn’t their scouting work result in them contacting the Atlas about Honerva’s presence then? The Atlas learned Honerva was here because of her wormhole activity. If they have scouts there, then those scouts should have observed Honerva and reported that information to the Atlas. Also, if these are scout ships running missions for the Atlas, then it should not have taken them hours to realize that they have scout ships at the same location as Honerva’s wormholes. This is inconsistent in so many ways.
The rebel ships that are part of this scout group move in on Honerva’s precise location. After pulling up an image of the pyramid, one of the rebels says they’ve never seen a ship like that before. Voltron saw the pyramid rising into the sky at Oriande in “Genesis,” did they not provide that information to not just the Atlas, but to the whole Coalition? That’s information that most absolutely would be disseminated if characters in this show did things that normal people would. The rebels spot Honerva’s mecha and start to report it back to the Atlas when they’re attacked by a Robeast. The Robeast seeming destroys all the scout ships. Keith’s addition to the scene – “They need to get out of there!” – seems so strange. How are they supposed to get away? They’re small, old ships that don’t have the large, advanced engines the Atlas has. How does Keith think that, given that the Atlas can’t get to the location, the scout ships would be able to get away?
Honerva tells Merla, who’s in the Robeast, to “set a course for Altea.” So, Honerva has assigned Merla to both be a Robeast pilot and the executive officer on the bridge of the pyramid?
Slav continues trying to get Sam and Pidge to do what he feels needs to be done according to his OCD. Pidge yells at him, which makes me think of how Shiro did everything he could to work with Slav in 2x10 “Escape from Beta Traz.” The only time Shiro yelled at him was to tell Slav to do whatever he needed to do to work his way through his OCD, he was never dismissive of Slav’s OCD like Pidge is when she yells at him here. This whole scene is presented as humor, but I just don’t feel it. At least, it’s not in the absolute middle of combat or other high-tension scene or sequence. After Slav points out that he has actually calculated the probability of what he’s talking about, Pidge joins him in his OCD performance. That’s not Pidge respecting Slav for his having OCD, that’s her respecting him for his being a mathematician.
Shiro and the Atlas detect Honerva’s jump to where Altea and Daibazaal once were. It’s still really weird to me that both planets were in the same solar system, that the Galra have always been conquerors, yet they never conquered the nearest alien civilization to their homeworld.
Lance sits with unconscious Allura, asking her to help them. She opens her eyes after he finishes speaking. Honerva knows that Allura has regained consciousness. Lance and Allura arrive on the bridge. The Atlas contacts Hunk, who says that they’ve “found a new Balmera and new Balmerans.” They already knew this Balmera was there, so how did they find a new one? Also, these new Balmerans do not look like Balmerans. So, with the introduction of this species which is now labeled “Balmeran,” we’re to understand that this entire show until now, “Balmeran” wasn’t the name of the species that’s been identified as such since the first season of this show? Why? Why introduce this new species now? It doesn’t add anything to the story. Hunk says they’re “having trouble finding a big enough crystal.” I guess it’s just contrived that it has to be a single crystal and not a bunch of crystals used together. Coran has some unspoken, undetailed plan (if his plan is just to bring the whole Balmera with him, then that’s not actually a plan, that’s a postponement of finding a solution). Allura tells him do whatever he needs to because she can wormhole them to the destined location.
Shiro announces the ship to prepare for the transit and orders the MFE squadron to the ready. Allura uses the two-handed podium to wormhole the Atlas. I like the music during this moment. This is the first time I can remember saying that I liked the music this season.
The Atlas arrives at the pyramid. Everyone’s mouth drops open. The pyramid has glowing sigils above it, there are several Robeasts, Sincline, and the Honerva’s mecha all there. “What’s she doing?” Pidge asks. Hadn’t they figured this out already? They had a staff meeting at the beginning of the episode to talk about having learned that Honerva was going to use Sincline to tear through realities. The show even had Shiro say, “That’s where she’s going to cross through realities” when they learned Honerva had jumped to where Altea used to be a couple scenes earlier. So, why does Shiro now answer Pidge’s question with, “I don’t know” when he knew several scenes before?
Keith tells Allura that she’ll “have to wait until Hunk and Coran return. We need Voltron as soon as possible.” But this show has had the Atlas (and the Castle of Lions before that) create wormholes without Allura there to do so. The show having her here have to be there to do it now does not fit what the show has previously done. This show really has the necessity of Allura for wormhole generation be completely contrived, sometimes she has to be there, sometimes she doesn’t have to be there. When the show can’t make up its mind like this, it has an effect on the audience. The inconsistency produces confusion, prevents the audience from being able to understand the rules of the systems working within the story, the audience cannot track the story, and it makes the story fall apart. It generates an apathy in the audience.
Black, Blue and Green Lions launch and begin fighting the Robeasts. It is amazing that the Atlas just jumped in here with no plan whatsoever. The Atlas raises its shields and says they’ll draw the Robeasts’ fire so the Lions can get to Honerva. The three Robeasts create a shield to block the Atlas’s cannon fire. Hunk communicates that they’re ready to come, and as Allura goes to wormhole them in, she gets a flash and a headache and falls down screaming. She hears Honerva say, “Arise, my children. The time has come to act. Repent for your traitorous ways.” The Colony Alteans are shown having reactions similar to Allura. Merla is shown as being aware that this is happening. Honerva continues, “Lend me your quintessence and all will be forgiven.” The Colony Alteans’ eyes glow yellow like Honerva’s did when she was Haggar, and they break out of the brig and make their way to the bridge. They’re shown getting into an elevator and then they’re immediately in the hallway outside the door to the bridge. They break down the door, they punch Shiro across the room. They do a hand-touch-glow on the floor. Honerva says, “Deliver me the power I need to return to our homeland. Give your energy along with the ship’s crystal. All of it.” With the crystal chamber up out of the floor, they reach toward it, and there’s a bright flash of light.
Cut to the Lions still fighting the Robeasts. What happened to the Atlas shooting at the Robeasts to occupy them while the Lions got to Honerva? Is that supposed to have stopped happening because the Alteans on the bridge messing with the crystal? If so, the show needed to show the Lions reengaging in combat with the Robeasts since they had already moved on past the Robeasts.
Merla looks toward the Atlas and yells, “My people!” This is so out of character for her. She’s a zealot. Why is she now suddenly concerned about them dying when she’s been cool with it this entire time?
The bridge crew of the Atlas stand around and let the Alteans draw energy from the crystal and beam it to the pyramid. No one thinks to pull out a gun and shoot them. Of course, it would be nice if they could stop them without killing them, but if necessary, that crew would realistically kill these Alteans to stop them now. I know the show couldn’t actually show them getting shot dead, so just don’t write it to be shot to death, but still shoot them. Do something? The Atlas crew is just letting this happen.
It also makes me want to know why Allura didn’t try to draw the entities out of the other Alteans. She drew it out of Tova. Between then and the Paladins deciding to use the entity-in-Allura to go into Honerva’s mind, why didn’t she pull the entities out of the other Alteans? Having her not do so is totally contrived so that the show could have this moment. I really don’t like when characters are written to behave illogically just so the show can have another moment later. Rather than having moments flow from one to another in the story, this story is constructed set-pieces first and then those set-pieces are forced together, connective content that bridge them is always subject to a greater amount of inconsistency because one moment doesn’t grow out of the previous moments.
Merla speaks her concerns to Honerva that the Alteans on the Atlas will die. Again, why was Merla not concerned about their deaths before now? Honerva maniacally yells, “Their lives will be sacrificed for their savior.” The pyramid gets its needed energy, the sigils rise and an even larger sigil is created by a beam of purple electricity sparking directly upward off the top of the pyramid. Merla uses her Robeast to fire a chest cannon blast at the pyramid, which seems to affect the pyramid and its sigil generation. On the Atlas, the Alteans fall down and the Atlas loses power.
I guess Allura had just been laying unconscious during all this? It would have been cool, since Allura was affected too, if she had used the connectivity caused by the entity to psychically fight against the Alteans. It would have been cool if she had stopped them, not Merla. That way, Merla’s reaction and action would not be totally out of character for her. It is so wrong that everyone on the Atlas just stood around doing nothing, Shiro did nothing, they all just let the Alteans do what they did. Their inaction was all contrived so that Merla could have her moment of turning against Honerva. The show thought the plot twist of Merla’s turn was worth more than having the heroes of the story actually act heroically. They wrote the heroes to become total, unrealistic bystanders all in the service of executing a narratively unnecessary plot twist. It’s so annoying.
Allura regains consciousness, hearing Hunk calling for help. How does the room Allura’s in have power when they lost all power on the bridge? How does the ship’s communication system have power to receive Hunk’s communication when the bridge has lost power? Allura opens a wormhole. There’s a shot from within the bridge, which reminds me that the bridge has windows, so a few moments ago, the bridge should not have gone completely black the way it did. Even if they lost power, the light from outside the ship should have still come through the windows just like it’s doing now in this scene.
The Yellow Lion comes through the wormhole, bringing the Balmera with them.
Honerva sees the Balmera and sends blades from her mecha’s wings to attack it. Those blades stab the surface of the Balmera and draw power from it to the pyramid. There are some really large crystals shown on the Balmera, so how is it that they didn’t have one large enough to power the weapon upgrade for the Atlas? I guess this is just the animation not matching the script?
Keith orders the Paladins to attack. The Lions, for some reason, are at the Atlas when Keith gives this order. They had been attacking the Robeasts near the pyramid – they were supposed to have moved beyond the Robeasts further toward the pyramid, but that was dropped – and now they’re at the Atlas instead of where they had been fighting the Robeasts. They have to make their way all the way back to the pyramid where they had already been. Even with Merla stopping, why would the other two Robeasts stop attacking the Lions to let them return to the Atlas? Even if there were no Robeasts, why had the Lions come back to the Atlas at all? The logistics make no sense whatsoever.
So, the energy drained from the Balmera zaps Sincline and Honerva’s mecha. The two Robeasts move to attack the incoming Lions. Those Robeasts were knocking the Lions around easily earlier, but now the Blue and Green Lions easily knock the Robeasts aside so Black can mouth-blast at Honerva. The capacity of the Lions/Voltron for battle in this series has always felt unbalanced and managed by whatever conveniently hit whatever emotional or plot development beat a moment was scripted for.
Honerva’s mecha uses the rest of its crystal wing-blades to block Black’s mouth-blast. The Yellow Lion joins the fight but is blasted by Honerva. Honerva sends her remaing crystal blades to attack the Black Lion, hitting it multiple times. Merla moves to attack Honerva, who blasts Merla and blows her up.
Then Honerva merges her mecha with Sincline. It has crystal wing-blades like Honerva’s mecha did, but she didn’t seem to recall her blades from the Balmera, so did this merge just create new blades? The blades form a circle that spins. And the episode ends.
While this episode is less confusing than the previous two, it’s still not clearly written. There’s too much that’s set-up that doesn’t pay off, too much that’s inconsistent with what’s come before. Inconsistency seems to be the theme of this series’s production.