After the first season of FX’s ‘Archer’, I felt like I had stumbled upon a comedy goldmine that no one else had found. But we’re now in the fourth season and the show has been gaining fans every year and every year, the show has gotten better. The show now has established characters, running gags and more than enough inside jokes, making it one of, if not the, funniest shows on television.
Perhaps the best episode of the fourth season is the first episode, where we pick up with Sterling Archer as a fry cook at a burger place (a great semi-crossover with ‘Bob’s Burgers’). It turns out that Archer has amnesia and is under attack from Russian assassins and ISIS is still trying to find their best agent. This sets the tone for the season as each episode has forced the writers to come up with new and creative missions for the ISIS agents. The previous three seasons pretty much covered all the in-office jokes and now we get more of Archer and Lana in the field, highlighting how horrible Archer is to work with. Obviously, this makes for some great comedy as the two already have a good rapport.
The fourth season also saw increased roles for supporting players like Krieger and Pam, with Krieger providing several of the laugh out loud moments. I love the fact that we don’t know much about him and that he pops up at random times throughout the show. Although the show lives and dies with Archer, characters like Krieger, Ray, Pam, Cyril and Cheryl have been the source of humor the last couple of seasons. As storylines have started to wear a little thin, the show has really started to lean on the supporting characters for comedy and in season four, they’ve come through. I was also happy to have less of Barry and Archer’s cyborg ex-girlfriend. That storyline was killed in season three and even though they show up for an episode in season four, they don’t overstay their welcome.
You won’t find me complaining too much about ‘Archer’ since it’s one of my favorite shows on television, but if I was going to point to a potential problem, it’s that the creative team might be running on fumes after 62 episodes. But that’s a moot point since the fifth season will find Archer and the ISIS gang running a drug cartel (none of that is set up in the fourth season). If anything, that makes me love the show even more and they haven’t even pulled it off yet. But it gives us a reason to keep looking forward to future seasons of ‘Archer’.
Video: Archer is such a simple animated show that it doesn’t really need the capabilities of Blu-ray to be enjoyed. That said, Archer looks fantastic.
Audio: The same can be said for the audio. It’s not necessary, but the audio is impressive.
Fisherman’s Daughter (3:28): This is a strange short featuring a young Krieger on a date. You have to watch it to understand.
Archer Live (20:01): The voice cast shows up for a live reading in New York City. It’s funny to see them in person using their voices from the show.
Previews
