Animated shows come and go like the weather, but every so often a perfect hybrid of awesome, originality and talent comes along, and a real keeper is born. Archer, the FX channel's new animated series, is precisely that.
A satiric comedy with razor wit and modern reference, "Archer" will be an easy fit for fans of Adult Swim on Cartoon Network, specifically "Sealab 2021". Series creator Adam Reed brings the same irreverent, subversive tone so richly explored in his work for the aforementioned show, making "Archer" a finely-tuned laughmaker for any guy old enough to remember the turn of the century.
H. John Benjamin is perfectly cast as the voice of Sterling Archer, the square-jawed deadliest secret agent at ISIS. Dashing and deadly and about as mature as a fifteen year-old, Archer's more dysfunctionally & narcissistically hilarious than any character in recent memory - sort of like The Office's Michael Scott, only with a license to kill and a penchant for getting almost everyone around him shot. Add a dose of serious mommy issues - possibly because his domineering, agency-heading boss also happens to be his mother Malory (Jessica Walter) - and you've got a leading man worth tuning in for.
Archer's associated at the ISIS headquarters is Lana Kane (Aisha Taylor), the other top secret agent and Archer’s seam-splittingly curvaceous porn-loving ex-girlfriend. She dumped Archer because of his oddly Oedipal relationship with his mother, yet the spark isn't entirely gone between them, despite the fact that she's been shacking up with nerdy ISIS comptroller Cyril Figgis (SNL’s Chris Parnell). Parnell plays his part to perfection, enriching the peripheral character gravity beyond Lana's drool-inducing sultriness.
Carol (Judy Greer), Malory’s secretary, is so in love with Archer that she changes her name all the time to whatever he's mistakenly calling her that week. Woodhouse (George Coe) is Sterling’s elderly butler, the frequent subject of Sterling’s abusive tirades while Pam (Amber Nash) is the chunkalicious HR woman in hopeless lust with Lana, as well as the brunt of relentless (hilarious ) fat jokes from Archer.
To call Archer sociopathic would be kind; when his mother shows him an overweight assassination target, he asks, "What, is diabetes busy?" The snark is in fifth gear from the get-go, as the Krav Maga enthusiast dismisses karate as "the Dane Cook of martial arts", or when facing an ironic circumstance, Archer groans, "This is like O Henry and Alanis Morissette had a baby and named it this exact situation!".
If none of this is funny to you, you better grab the defibrillator, cause your pulse is on the fritz.
The standard dashing-agent Bond parallel plots apply, but the storylines are always secondary to the hilarious hyper-drama among ISIS members. If there's one animated series worth putting your money on this year, it's"Archer". Check it out Thursday nights at 10 on FX.
