The Parents’ Television Council is going to be pretty upset with Archer.
The new animated show, airing Thursdays at 7 PM on FX, is one of the most explicit television programs to emerge in recent memory. References to genitals are made wantonly, characters make veiled threats against each other with regularity, and jokes about religion, race, and creed are as common as nudity. Suffice it to say, Archer is hysterical from start to finish.
The brainchild of Adam Reed, better known as the creator of Cartoon Network’s late-night Adult Swim staples Sealab 2021 and Frisky Dingo, follows the life of Sterling Archer, international spy, tender lover, drunk, and hateful son. Ostensibly a takeoff on 1960s spy shows like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Mission Impossible, Archer showcases the absurd and obscene day-to-day happenings at the International Secret Intelligence Service (or ISIS), an ineptly run spy agency with 25-year-outdated equipment housed in a beige 1960s high-rise office building.
Its cast of characters includes womanizing protagonist (H. Jon Benjamin), his sexpot superspy ex-girlfriend (Aisha Tyler), her boring cubicle-dwelling boyfriend (SNL alum Chris Parnell), and Archer’s mother, a foul-mouthed bigot who runs ISIS and hates her son as much as he hates her (Jessica Walter).
Further aiding Archer’s spy-show parody is its animated style, which borders on realism and closely resembles the serial adventure comics common in the 1960s. Reed made a point of sticking to realistic drawings of the actual actors involved in the show. The animation style mimics his own series Frisky Dingo, though without the alien super villains to replicate that pulp comic feel. Like fellow FX comedy staple It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, part of the reason why we laugh is because it’s just so hard to imagine people actually saying these things, and yet there they are.
A near-doppelganger of legendary Adult Swim series The Venture Brothers, Archer seems a perfect fit for Cartoon Network’s late-night lineup of absurdity, but Reed instead pitched the show to FX, which immediately ordered a six-episode production run. Though at first a terribly profane animated series might seem more suited for an arcane late-night channel than a primetime slot on a well-known network, FX is rapidly becoming a hub of controversial, button-pushing programming like Sons of Anarchy and the aforementioned It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and a polemical series like Archer seems to be the next logical step.
Though there’s no guarantee that Archer will be picked up for a second run at this point, just five episodes in, it’s already hard to imagine a Thursday night without making time for ISIS’s hilarious incompetence. One hopes there will be plenty of similar Thursdays for years to come.
