Wolo's Lost World/Legend of the Space Forest

Wolo's Lost World

The Explorer and two support ships are in orbit around a planet.  Newley and Hawkins are watching the Voltron force flying over the surface.  Hawkins regrets that the planet is not suitable for prolonged colonization.  The Drule empire even passed it up.  Hawkins agrees to broadcast their lift off time.

Jeff is also disappointed in the planet's unsuitability.  Cliff takes the land team for a quick look at the far side.  The air team lands.  Rocky, Ginger, Chip, and Jeff all talk about the planet and its ruins.  Wolo, on the other hand, thinks back to his childhood, and a time he and his older brother went into some woods, hunting monsters.  Jeff breaks into Wolo's reverie.  They teaase him a little (clearly GG training doesn't include cultural relativism),

Brack calls some guy who they name and treat as Mongo, but it's totally some other guy.  Brack wants to attack the Explorer.  The guy who's not Mongo goes and interrupts Hazar's shower.  Hazar denies permission to attack, and is annoyed that Brack is so popular on the supreme council.

On the planet, Wolo sits by his mecha, thinking back to monster-hunting time.  And his brother teasing him.  And getting scared by a scary pair of scare-eyes.  That turns out to be an alien chicking and a vine he gets his legs tangled in.

Wolo's daydream is broken by an earthquake that swallows him and his mecha.  Hawkins tries to reach him from the Explorer.

Professor Page is giving a seminar on the environmental catastrophe that ruined the planet.  The same thing almost happened on Earth.  Hawkins contacts them and tells them to go see why Wolo's not responding.

Wolo's not responding because he's having flashbacks about the giant turkey dragon that grabbed him, then went after his brother.  And then the source of the earthquakes reveals itself as a robeast.  Which causes Wolo to scream "It's another monster."  The robeast acts all menacing, and Wolo is determined to defeat it.  He gets in his mecha and fires missiles at it.  It catches him with rocket ropes, and Brak is pleased with himself.  He also doesn't care if Hazar approves or not.  The robeast starts using the rocket ropes to electrocute him.

Jeff flies over the chasm opened by the earthquake.  He passes through the forest and see the robeast--with Wolo's ship.  Jeff evades the rocket ropes and tries to raise Wolo.  The robeast hits him with a beam weapon.  Jeff calls Hawkins and requests the rest of the team.  Hawkins sends them after him.  Unfortunately, we see them launch in formation with Jeff and Wolo's mecha.

Jeff continues to fight, but gets ensared in the rocket ropes.  Then we see a shot of the three subfighters.  Jeff is getting electrocuted when Cliff cuts the ropes.  We see a number of shots of the team with Wolo's ship present.  The team decides they need to unite as Voltron, but Wolo's still . . .

. . .  flashing back about the turkey dragon throwing his brother and, erm, knocking the wind out of him.  He comes to as Hawkins calls him.  Wolo launches.

Brack laughs to see the robeast fighting Voltron.  Hazar calls him and yells had him for disobeying his orders.  Brack says "If he calls again, tell him I've defected and joined the Voltron force.

The team is fighting when Wolo rejoins them and they form Voltron.  They attack the robeast, and Wolo gets them out of the rocket ropes when he flashes back to getting snared by vines.  The robeast blinds them with an energy flash and then tunnels to get away.  It reemerges, fights, buries itself, and repeats.  They catch it as it pops up out of the ground again, and it gets sworded.  It explodes, and Wolo thinks about his brother.  He and Jeff have a good laugh and the camera pulls back to the Explorer in orbit.

We get a shot of the dual planets that were home to the worms in the ghost fleet episode, then we get Wolo and Jeff discussing the planet against footage of the team in the lounge.

I will be honest.  The last couple of Voltron episodes have been tough slogging.  I don't know why, because I've always preferred vehicle to lion (though I still love Lion Voltron).  Maybe it just hasn't hit its stride yet.  Regardless, I'm realy enjoying the Dairugger episodes, so I can't really explain it.  And speaking of Dairugger. . .

Legend of the Space Forest

The Rugger Guard is in orbit with two escort ships.  Ise and Asimov are watching the Rugger team as they survey the planet.  A bridge crewman gives Ise that atmospheric breakdown.  They call the Rugger team back, and Ise has some regrets about time spent on this planet, though Asimov says all the data they collect is important.

Aki is having much the same experience.  Walter and keats decide to break off and do more survey before the Rugger Guard's 3 P.M. departure.

The air team looks over the ruins, speculating on the fate of the people and how the planet got to be so barren.  Kruez, on the other hand, is staring off into the forest, thinking of a time his brother led him into the forest.  And his first name is Shota.  Shota Kruez.  Huh.  He asks Aki permission to stay a little longer.

At the Galveston frontline base, Captain Barataria contacts Staff Officer Church and tells him that he has on opportunity to attack the Earth survey force.  The staff officer (totally not Drake) doesn't like the idea, and goes and bothers Teles in the shower.  Teles decides that leaving the Earth force there is to their advantage.

Kreuz remembers more of the time in the forest with his brother.  And the bird.  And the vines.  Like in Voltron.  Then the Galveston battle machine causes and earthquake and emerges from the ground.  His mecha (Rugger three) and he both tumble into the crevasse.

Aboard the Rugger Guard, Ise is unable to raise Kreuz.

Dr. Search is explainin what happened on this planet, and that it almost happened on Earth 200 years ago.  We then see forests being destroyed.  Ise then calls Aki and tells him that they've lost Kreuz.  Aki goes to check on him.

Kreuz is hallucinating about the monster in the woods, and HOW HIS BROTHER SACRIFICED HIMSELF to save his life.  In a way that really doesn't make a lot of sense (why didn't they just run out together?  They had time while the monster was blinded.

Then the goofy looking battle machine appears and totally screams like old-school GOJIRA.  When we return from the commercial, that scream is no longer present, and Kreuz weirdly wants revenge.  So the battle machine's tactics are to catch a mecha in its rocket ropes, disable it with electric charges, and Barataria wants the battle machine to bring Rugger 3 back for analysis.  That was a neat little touch.

Then Aki comes upon the battle machine.  He evades the rocket ropes while trying to awaken Kreuz, but gets hit by the beam weapon, and then calls Ise to call for help.  The Rugger teams launch, but the Dairugger footage is edited to Aki's machine doesn't appear (unlike in Voltron.  That's really weird.  Why would the WEP staff create their own continuit errors).  However, Kreuz' ship appears TWICE in the formation shots.  There's some more footage of individual Rugger ships being tossed around by the battle machine Aki tries to raise Kreuz.

Kreuz is remember running away from the monster, and then heading back for his brother.  He hits the monster in the other eye with a spear, and it throws his brother, who then dies.

Ise finally succeeds in awakening him to form Dairugger.

Barataria urges the battle machine to finish the job.  Then Teles appears on the viewer and orders him back.  Oh, and Barataria's XO is named Sazahki.

The battle against the battle machine doesn't go so well now that they've formed Dairugger.  The beastie tries its usual tactic of trapping them with rocket ropes, but first Kreuz has Aki kick the machine, then they just cut through them with the Rugger sword.  Then it tries to use its digging ability to some advantage--basically, this battle is a little more varied from the fomrula they've fallen into in the last couple episodes.  Then Kreuz catches sight of the thing just as its emerging.  Good for him, that he had this episode.  'Cuz this is pretty much the last we'll hear from him beyond some group scenes.  Kreuz has a final moment dedicated to his brother, and he tells the rest of the story.  Which is basically him wandering from forest to forest trying to find the monster that sort of killed his brother.

Aki wants to know why he's so broody.  Aki lets it go, because that's one less battle machine for Galveston.  Then the Rugger Guard and the two other ships are poised to leave.