In case you missed it, the second season of the Netflix exclusive Voltron Legendary Defender was released recently and it's really rather good. Essentially, Voltron Legendary Defender is a reboot of the classic Voltron cartoon from the 80's. That in turn was comprised of two disparate super robot anime series called Beast King GoLion and Armored Fleet Dairugger XV. The former series, GoLion, is what many regard to be Voltron in terms of the mecha as well as the story and Legendary Defender builds on that. To the extent that when I interviewed Joaquim Dos Santos, one of the showrunners for Legendary Defender, last year he was quite upfront about GoLion's influence: We definitely had the benefit of being able to go back and watch the original Beast King GoLion while researching for this show.

In its quest to conquer as much of the universe as the wires will reach, Netflix has engaged DreamWorks Animation in a revival of the 1980s space-robot franchise, now titled "Voltron: Legendary Defender," whose 13 episodes go live to binge or not to binge Friday. They've slapped on a fresh coat of digital paint, turned up the sound and assembled a cast that includes Steven Yeun, Tyler Labine, Bex Taylor-Klaus and Rhys Darby, familiar from the live-action world, along with Jeremy Shada (the voice of Finn on "Adventure Time"), Kimberly Brooks and Josh Keaton, whom you are as of yet more likely to have heard, in cartoons or video games, than seen. Does it better its predecessor? Your cherished memories aside, that is a bar set low. So, yes, it does better by them – by quite a lot and, at the same time significantly, not by too much.

Like scads of kids in the mid-'80s, producer Joaquim Dos Santos was drawn to his local toy store by "Voltron: Defender of the Universe," imploring his favorite uncle to buy him the giant title robot. "He thought he was going to buy me this little Transformer toy when we went to the store, but it was this 100 diecast Voltron, and I could see him just cringing taking it up to the register." Lauren Montgomery is a bit too young to remember everything about the anime series, but she knew that she liked it and is excited to be collaborating as co-executive producer with Dos Santos on a new version for Netflix premiering June 10 dubbed "Voltron: Legendary Defender." "There was no YouTube, so it was hard to go back to as I grew up," says Montgomery. "Once it came out on DVD, and now you can even watch it on [anime website] Crunchyroll, I re-familiarized myself with it." Though a hit, the original lion-based "Voltron," created by Peter Keefe and John Teichmann in 1984, only ran for one year.

The first teaser trailer for the Netflix animated series "Voltron: Legendary Defender." Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos are the creative team behind Netflix's "Voltron: Legendary Defender." The mechanized lions of Voltron are roaring back to life. The popular 1980s cartoon fantasy franchise with one really cool giant robot is being introduced to a new generation with the Netflix's animated series Voltron: Legendary Defender. Produced by DreamWorks Animation, the first 13 22-minute episodes will drop on June 10.