The last season (season 9) of Archer was an atrocious piece of television that didn't make me smile once. I don't use rating systems in my reviews, but season 10 is easily 1.5 points better than the last season. It's not really enough.
Continuing the theme of not being the regular Archer theme, season 10 is a sci-fi adventure. And all that's can be said of it without retreading the same ground I followed after the previous goddamn seasons: we have to reinvent all the relationships and all the character dynamics, just to try and create something that's vaguely similar, sans running gags and clever embedded humour.
I get why they do this. They took the piss out of 60s/70s spy tropes, why not take the piss out of other adventure genres? Why not try the franchise on other settings, if that stuff is purely the window dressing to clever writing and fun characters? But as soon as I finishedd season 10, I reverted back to season 2 and saw how much smarter and snappier the writing is, even when they're joking about fucking teenage princesses, all presented with scratchy Flash-style animations.
As I said, season 10 gets 1.5 points better than the last season. I occasionally smiled. Some episodes I even laughed. And the finest thing about it is the season ends on a two parter episode that promises to FINALLY return to the original 60s spy format. That earns them half a mark alone. But only half, because I have no idea if they will think to bring back the rest of the things that make Archer work.
[Season 10] We Can Rebuild Him, Right?
The last season (season 9) of Archer was an atrocious piece of television that didn't make me smile once. I don't use rating systems in my reviews, but season 10 is easily 1.5 points better than the last season. It's not really enough.
Continuing the theme of not being the regular Archer theme, season 10 is a sci-fi adventure. And all that's can be said of it without retreading the same ground I followed after the previous goddamn seasons: we have to reinvent all the relationships and all the character dynamics, just to try and create something that's vaguely similar, sans running gags and clever embedded humour.
I get why they do this. They took the piss out of 60s/70s spy tropes, why not take the piss out of other adventure genres? Why not try the franchise on other settings, if that stuff is purely the window dressing to clever writing and fun characters? But as soon as I finishedd season 10, I reverted back to season 2 and saw how much smarter and snappier the writing is, even when they're joking about fucking teenage princesses, all presented with scratchy Flash-style animations.
As I said, season 10 gets 1.5 points better than the last season. I occasionally smiled. Some episodes I even laughed. And the finest thing about it is the season ends on a two parter episode that promises to FINALLY return to the original 60s spy format. That earns them half a mark alone. But only half, because I have no idea if they will think to bring back the rest of the things that make Archer work.