SHANNON MUIR'S VOLTRON PAGES - THE INFATUATED MISADVENTURES OF PIDGE IN THE 1984 SHOW
Last post, I talked about where seeds seemed to be planted for potential long term relationships in the 20 U.S. produced episodes for Lance and Hunk.
Now, let's talk about what those same 20 episodes do with Pidge, and how it seems to support Lance being set up to grow for a more serious relationship if the right person found him.
Both Lance and Pidge, in the original 52 episodes, regularly seem to compete for kisses from Princess Allura out on the balcony. Pidge usually gets kissed by the mice instead, except the one time Pidge saves Allura's life from a near death sleep by threatening Haggar and Lotor with a hand grenade (see "The Sleeping Princess"). Apparently, that's what it took for Nanny to be okay with it... but once was enough.
In the 20 U.S. produced episodes, there are instances where Lance and Pidge react to the same woman initially, but their overall responses diverge.
Omnia in "The Traitor" is the first of these. Lance starts out referring to her as a dream, but once he understands the magnitude of her problems, gets to work on the problem and in fact chews out the others for just standing around. Once they've agreed on a plan, Allura complements Omnia on being a very courageous woman, and Pidge follows with "And pretty, too!". Lance is standing right next to him staring off with intent into space, and looking at the staging, it seems to be in Omnia's direction. Pidge's comment just seems so out of place in such a serious moment - and also, up until now, something one would have expected from Lance.
This scenario repeats itself a couple episodes later in "Take a Robot to Lunch," the episode that introduces Mary Ann the pacifist scientist. The Voltron Force is taken by Coran to meet one of the Galaxy's greatest scientists, not being told the scientist is female and without Coran correcting when the pronoun "he" is used.
Which results in a lot of confusion when they are introduced.
Lance comments in a surprise it is a woman. If you look at his overall conversation, especially Lance's conversation with Coran as she leaves discussing that she is a "very special lady" and Coran explains her convictions, this is not a case of flirting but respect. Major growth for Lance.
Meanwhile, Pidge upon meeting another scientist only seems to be able to manage "She's pretty!"
Um, okay... I suppose. It doesn't bother me quite so much with Omnia, because maybe it gets to that point where he is getting interested in other women besides the somewhat fairytale qualities of Princess Allura.
But meeting another scientist and being more interested in her looks than anything else? This seems to indicate Pidge developing, shall we say, other priorities.
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