Archer: Season 6

Back to back one-off TV season posts for me. Hooray for DVDs, which are still a thing in my backlog. There's not a lot for me to say about Archer at this point, particularly the sixth season. The show was recently renewed all the way through Season 10 - which creator Adam Reed says will be its last one - and Season 8 begins in a few months. Now, not long ago, Adam Reed wanted to end the show after eight seasons, but he says a creative explosion one night gave him enough ideas to mix things up for another two years. Because that's the only way Adam Reed can keep giving a shit about his television shows, is by constantly tweaking the formula. Sealab 2021 was never really grounded in any sense, but it grew increasingly wacky and flung itself far off the rails somewhere around when Harry Goz died midway through Season 3. (RIP, Captain Murphy.) And even though Frisky Dingo only lasted for two years, it seemed to reinvent itself three or four separate times across those 26 episodes. Frankly, the fact that Archer remained as consistent (within its own niche genre) as it did for four whole years is kind of astounding.

It wasn't until Season 5 that Reed decided to shake things up; that season was unofficially called Archer Vice and it followed the characters as they turned away from working at a spy agency and embarked on new careers as country music stars and cocaine dealers. Season 7 saw the gang move to California to open up a private investigator agency. And Season 8 will allegedly take place in the 1940s - entirely in a comatose dreamland as one main character was left dying at the end of Season 7. Who knows where Seasons 9 and 10 will go?

At any rate, that leaves Season 6 - yes, the one after the Archer Vice season - as what looks to be the last "regular" season of Archer. The crew worked once again as an international spy agency here, albeit one under the thumb of the CIA, and as such it dealt primarily with the exact same sorts of stories and adventures that filled Seasons 1-4. And you know what? I was fine with that. I loved Seasons 1-4, and, no surprise, I really enjoyed Season 6. By comparison, Season 5 was great but it felt a bit like it ran out of steam late - perhaps, like South Park, Archer isn't quite up for the task of making serialized arcs and should stick to more individual episodic outputs. That said, Season 7 did exactly that, and it was also a bit of a letdown for me. Eh, oh well. We're onto Season 8! Could be wonderful. And if it isn't, well, it's not like Seasons 9 and 10 will also take place in a 1940s dreamland.