This one is an improvement over anything from last season, which is a pretty low bar, but it's still a far cry from what it was at its creative peak back in the day.
[7.3/10] Well, I’m an idiot who accidentally watched episode 2 of this season, thinking it was episode 1, which meant a lot of the reveals of “Archer 1999” were already there for me when I realized my mistake and went back and watched this one.
Still, this is a good intro to the new season! It is still a sci-fi potpourri of references, but I like that. It’s basically doing an all-round sci-fi pastiche in the way Archer was originally doing an all-round spy pastiche. Beyond the obvious Alien reference, you have Ray as a Firefly-style courtesan, Pam as a Trek-esque rock monster, and Krieger spouting Asimov’s laws of robotics. There’s even a bit of the 2000s Battlestar Galactica in there with Cheryl as Starbuck.
But I also like the personal relationship setup. As Mrs. Bloom pointed out, this is a bit of a return to the original dynamic of the series, with Archer and Lana broken up while Lana is surreptitiously seeing Cyril. I also like the idea that they both own half of the ship and are trying to get it back home with Archer being his usual lucre-seeking, unreliable self. I’ll admit, I miss the show’s character development for Archer, but there’s still some juice to be squeezed from the original character dynamics, especially when everything’s in space.
The plot to rescue an alien prince, only to have the whole thing turn into a trap is a nice little swerve, and there’s even some damn good action with the firefight in space.
Overall, it’s a promising start to the new season (for real this time!) with an interesting new reimagining of the show.
While I agree that last season was the weakest of the Archer series, who among us didn't perk up when we saw the epilogue / preview of the last episode? I thought they were going to do a straight riff on the original "Alien" movie, but, it looks like they are going to just use that as the tip off, and then go their own dementedly Archer direction, with Cheryl giving a "new do and all" hat tip to Kara "Starbuck" Thrace. A good start though, even with xenomorphic Butt Plugs and gay Kabuki courtesans. (one of these things goes well with the other) Let's mosey on into the Danger Zone and see where this newest saga leads us!!
Love the setting but it was a little light on the jokes. Hopefully it'll hit its stride next episode.
Review by anahataBlockedParent2019-06-18T13:49:10Z
This season, along with the last, have been disappointing. I started watching Archer for the character development rather than for the mostly throwaway plots. The writing has changed from seeing what happens when crazy characters are put in normal / bizarre situations to putting characters in bizarre situations and seeing what happens. There's a subtle difference there, but it's like the difference between Star Trek DS9 and Star Trek TNG.
Beyond that, there are far fewer callbacks to old, classic jokes (like "classic foo" itself) which gave the series a lot of its charm. They were never overdone to the point of absurdity, to the point of ruining the joke (looking at you, Family Guy), but I could rely on seeing a "are we still doing phrasing?" or cool, obscure bit of culture / history every episode. Now, we barely get any kind of callback to old jokes (nary a single "phrasing?", nor any "if you want foo, that's how you get foo", nor even a "Danger Zone!", which
areused to be series hallmarks), and the two cultural references weren't explained like they used to be. This isn't the Archer I started watching for, and while I like the scifi genre, the writing within the genre is what matters. I echo some other comments here in that I wish things return to the way they used to be for the next season.