Archer | TV Review

Story by Mitch McCann 

| Published Feb 1, 2011

Adam Reed’s hilarious FX spoof-spy comedy returns with a bang in the outrageous Season 2 premiere.

Despite being known as the world’s greatest secret agent, Archer is also a bumbling loose cannon responsible for death’s of comrades, incalculable damage, and so on and so forth. The overall aesthetic of the show would go something like if you took the characters in Mad Men and gave them It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia screen writers - with the bulk of the show seemingly occurring in the 1960’s, but using mostly modern pop-culture references (Archer referring to karate as “the Dane Cook of martial arts”)

In the season two premiere, Archer is pitted against a duo of moronic twin bellboys while fending off the advances of an under-aged, slutty Swedish countess. It unfolds like most episodes do, foreign bad guys and rudimentary spy-babble essentially provide a backdrop for golden boys Adam Reed and Matt Thompson to showcase the unforgiving delivery of the legendary H. Jon Benjamin (Home Movies, Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy.) Together Reed and Benjamin, along with the rest of the cast, have turned out a unique brand of ruthless comedy that could not be pulled off in any other venue.

Archer is very much an amalgamation of its Adam Reed predecessors (Frisky Dingo, Sealab 2021) with a modern perspective hearkening back to vintage the Adult Swim comedies. With Reed even describing his show as “James Bond meets Arrested Development.”

Archer descends from a long line of secret agent spoofs and parodies, so much so that it is nearly a genre in itself. The show pays great tribute to the exploits of the late Don Adams (Get Smart), Peter Sellers (Pink Panther) and Leslie Nielsen (Naked Gun.) While still delivering a fresh, particularly side-splitting, take on the usual secret agent gaffes and hijinks.