The 10th season of Archer, Archer: 1999, recently debuted on FXX last Wednesday bringing the long-in-the-tooth series back to the viewer. Fans have noticed a recent negative trend in the series since the dream seasons began in Season 8, which I won’t heavily get into now as I have touched on the subject previously, but Archer: 1999 may have given the series new life. Archer: 1999 revolving around the original science fiction tropes of the 60s and 70s, such as Alien, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and implementing hints of Firefly and Battlestar Galactica taking off into the strata after the crash landing of Danger Island. While changing the characters and settings provided a different take, it always felt as if Archer’s creator Adam Reed was forcing the series to stay relevant and fresh rather than letting the well-oiled machine run without interference. This natural vibe to Archer: 1999 allows for a feeling much closer to the original series when the group still worked for ISIS providing a much-needed turn to form. When changing the series each season it is bound to lead to an up and down nature of seasons that either connect with the audience or falls completely flat.

ALSO SEE: What Can Archer Do To Halt Its Rapid Decline?

While it is impossible to look at one episode and reach a conclusion that the show is completely fixed there are positive signs. The humor in Danger Island switched between being either too repetitive, or beating a dead horse, or simply nonexistent. However, Archer: 1999 fixes that problem by bringing back (space) phrasing and well-timed humor that made the show successful in the first place. Reed brought back Cyril’s inability to handle weapons while announcing “suppressing fire” which is even better in outer space and set up the best joke of the night with Archer stating he “couldn’t suppress a cough.” The well-timed quips like this allow for that feeling of the original Archer which thrived on the group’s dysfunctional dynamic. References to the series earlier seasons are quite apparent with the most notable being the ship M/V Seamus and insignia featuring Babou.

In the first episode, “Bort the Garj,” some characters took present stage while others simply did little to nothing at all. The notable characters were Cheryl who despite being the best fighter on the ship hates her job and Krieger being an artificial human, “fish,” which ties into the clone conspiracy from the earlier seasons. Archer is obviously given the largest share of the screen time and his new role as the captain of the ship fits his character. The only negative I found was that Barry cast as the villain for this season as well with the series honestly needing a new villain to shake things up.

The animation was the best part of the episode for me as there were really well-done character and background designs along with smooth and seamless animation and special effects. The space battle scene was gorgeous with the explosions being based on real-life nuclear explosions used in Operation Fishbowl. On Reddit visual effects artist Lindsay Meissner (NeonLindsay) mentioned how Archer was created providing some insight behind the magic.

“Backgrounds on Archer are a combination of 3D renders and Photoshop painting. Then they go to us in comp for color adjustment, lighting, and fx. This is where moving 3D assets like the Seamus spaceship get added to the mix as well.”

One common complaint among the fans is that this season feels like there is actually less runtime of the show which is a larger symptom of the dream seasons. The show hovering around 18 minutes in length with a title and ending credits makes watching the series live almost impossible with the share between commercials roughly 60/40 at best. While, I would say that the shorter time frame leads to a better-produced series that is simply not the case with Archer: 1999’s predecessor, Danger Island, having a similar runtime. Let’s just be happy there is some improvement, right?

Let us know your thoughts. Are you satisfied with the new season of Archer?

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