The adult cartoon Archer follows an alcoholic spy named Sterling Archer and how he increasingly gets fucked up beyond recognition over the course of the series. It’s got action, its got romance, its got messed up humor, and its got an ever evolving story. It’s like watching the a show like the Office but it’s James Bond where there are actual consequences. The series debuted and made headlines, people love watching this smut filled action drama because it’s always got some sort of interesting Ace up its sleeve. Most of the time it features stereotypical plot lines, but then it surprises you with something here and there. At first it doesn’t seem like there isn’t much story, and as time progresses and you get to know more and more about the characters it displays a brutal reality of how twisted human nature can get. Often it diverges from reality, but it executes it so well with the humor that you honestly don’t take to much notice of it. The characters grow and change over the show, sometimes they revert back tot heir old habits and ways but there’s an in universe explanation for why those kinds of things happen. Let’s highlight some of the most unique and amazing qualities of the show. Of course spoilers ahead.

The jokes in Archer often are long running and get more and more elaborate as time goes on. Even when audiences complained about how long running the jokes were, they continued the jokes in some form or fashion. Because the series is episodic and has multiple seasons jokes get dropped for a few seasons then picked up again. One of the series’s longest running jokes of “phrasing” gets picked up and dropped in universe a few different times. They even refer to it in universe by saying “are we seriously not doing phrasing anymore?”, the show has things like this that really makes you as a viewer feel as if you are watching a friend group interact naturally and organically. These recurring jokes often get old and the writing team of Archer knows this, but since its been an ongoing joke they often retool it into a new joke. One of the characters changes her name all the time which gets slightly annoying, but at a certain point she stops because she herself no longer knows what her name is. Some jokes only run for a season of the show and get brought back once or twice later on as a very funny homage to the earlier seasons. This show has so many jokes that its often fluid when they make a reference back because its not just the same content being recycled. The content of the show is inherently dark so the jokes are as well, usually they are so fucked up that its burned into your brain in a way that if its ever referenced again you’ll automatically know what joke they just made and where it originated. The character development often comes from these jokes, we get to see events of peoples lives before referred to like they are jokes. It’s actually quite hysterical, the shittiness of these individuals in the show is either downplayed or upplayed by the horrible jokes that are sprinkled throughout. The cutaway gags that in some shows feel excessive and overused like in Family Guys also exist in this show, but they feel more organic. The cutaway gags feel more like something that would be done by the individual character referenced rather than just some obscure quip about pop culture.

The design of the show is amazing, it started out fairly bland and bad looking, but as the show progressed and they had more funding the production quality of the design went way up. Honestly, comparing the first season to one of the later season makes you almost puke because of the differences. Now these differences aren’t always night and day, but its something that over time you can definitely tell changed. The format for Archer is unique, the pacing is incredible, and the visual style makes it stand out from all other adult cartoons. If you showed someone a screen shot from any episode of Archer they would probably be able to identify it with great ease as it looks so different than a lot of the traditional cartoon styles. Granted, you would have to show it to someone that watches a lot of TV or adult cartoons, but still the point stands. It’s unique in its design, the almost life like design of these characters that have thick bold lines and cell shading. It’s no wonder its loved by fans, its got a style that no else seems to have. It feels both modern and older, you never quite know what time period things are happening in because everyone uses these old crappy computers and flip phones but they also talk about social media stuff and websites. It’s distinct and I and so many others love it. The simplistic feel it has actually is a visual misnomer as there is hyper amount of detail. This show has such crisp lines and outlines that if your viewing it at a lower quality you still get to see everything that’s going on. The higher quality the show is, the more crisp it feels but it doesn’t have to have that crispness. One of the things they always say about the best character designs is that they have the most distinct silhouettes. Archer follows this rule, the intro is stylized to show the silhouettes of the characters and make them identifiable even without their coloring, shading, and line art. Honestly this show is a visual master piece in my opinion. It understands the assignment and delivers every time when it comes to visuals.

Now the story and jokes of Archer are great, however like most long running shows it ran into the big problem of running out of content and ideas. It’s clear the writing team was getting bored and didn’t know where they wanted to go next with the story around about season 7. This was more towards the end of season 7 and resulted in the writing team needing a break. Clearly they didn’t quite know for how long and definitely had a few silly alternative ideas they wanted to try and experiment with for a little bit while they figured out the next move with the main story. This resulted in the “coma seasons”, if you haven’t already seen Archer, well damn that sucks for you. At the end of season 7 the main character, Sterling Archer, goes into a coma after the cliffhanger of being shot multiple times and allegedly killed and also his butler Woodhouse kicking the bucket. By the way, it is Archer is notorious for events in the show happening and never fully being explained. As the audience, all we know is that Archer was shot and went into a coma for 3 years. This resulted in there being 3 seasons that took place entirely in Archers coma dream state, wherein stories and plot lines that would have never worked in the actual universe of the show got to be played out. We got to see Sterling Archer as a private detective after World War 2, struggling with Los Angels gangsters and PTSD. We got to see him dealing with his emotional failures and internal battles in the Danger Island season wherein he’s an ex-fighter pilot living on a French annexed island. And finally, we got the Archer 1999 season wherein Archer is a space ship captain that struggles with an unforgiving universe. These seasons honestly don’t watch like the rest of the show, they are different and not everyone’s cup of tea. Honestly, I don’t really like them as they explore story lines that we know won’t end up going anywhere. I understand their literary purpose of being used to explain Archer struggling with internal conflict while in a coma and him mentally resolving some things, they just don’t feel great. They feel like filler. Not the worst filler, they are entertaining, but they are definitely filler. Then when Archer comes out of the coma he comes back to a entirely changed world. The same people still exist in it but they walk and talk differently. Archer is shocked with this “man out of time” kind of thing along with the sense that things were better off without him. The season that follows the coma dreams seasons is honestly one of the better seasons. It is a little rough because the writers have to deal with a character now crippled and changed in a different world but they have portrayed it well. The final episodes of the season might not be the strongest but its trying its best and I think it was a really good season. Especially with the loss of one of the core characters. Archer is scheduled to release another season hopefully soon, everyone is excited for it despite it getting negative reviews. But honestly, the fact that the show has gone from a funny mindless sitcom to an intense story driven show that has character evolution is amazing. It’s not what you would have expected when you first started watching the show.

Personally I look forward to watching the next season of Archer, it has been by far one of the most entertaining shows I have watched. The comedy is gold, the story has more depth than initially thought, and its got so much uniqueness. I know I talked shit about it a little bit but honestly it gets a 5/5 from me. I love this show, go watch it. It is that good.

5/5

-Ben