A quick review of tonight’s “Archer” – the first of a three-part fall miniseries – coming up just as soon as I set two personal records…
It’s never entirely safe to make a judgement of anything screened at Comic-Con, particularly for a returning TV show, because the crowd tends to be so predisposed to liking it that their enthusiasm becomes infectious. So I can’t say for sure whether “Heart of Archness, Part 1” is genuinely one of the funniest “Archer” episodes to date, or if I just think that way because I saw it in a setting where it had homefield advantage.
That said, there was so much to enjoy here, as the show acknowledged the dark ending of the spring run while still plausibly getting back to comedy in a hurry. (Archer may grieve, but he’s going to grieve in the most selfish, juvenile way possible.) Patrick Warburton is a fantastic voice actor, and was a great foil for Archer as the very retro (“The 1930s called…”) Rip Riley(*). The show is at its best when Adam Reed and company are able to straddle the line between Archer being an ignorant baby and a witty spy capable of being a hyper-competent badass, and this episode nicely bounced back and forth between the two extremes. (The Comic-Con ballroom exploded when Archer celebrated killing the shark.)
(*) Who, visually, looked an awful lot like Duke from 1980’s G.I. Joe, no?
Tack on the late arrival of David Cross, the prospects of Archer very much digging the role of pirate king, Lana and Ray having the absolute power of the black titanium corporate card, and Cheryl believing she has psychokinetic powers, and you have a very promising start to this three-parter, whether you watched it with a thousand screaming fanboys/girls or no.
Doubt I’ll have time to write about part 2, given the insanity of network premiere week, but with any luck I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to discuss the finale.
What did everybody else think?