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Archer: The Complete Season One
Score: 95%
Rating: TV-14
Publisher: Fox Home Entertainment
Region: 1
Media: DVD/2
Running Time: 220 Mins.
Genre: Comedy/Adult-Themed/Espionage
Audio: 5.1 Dolby Digital
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish

Features:
  • The Original Unaired Pilot
  • The Making of Archer:
    • 3D Animation
    • Art Direction
    • Backgrounds
    • Illustration Storyboards
  • Unaired Network Promos
  • Deleted Scenes

Archer: The Complete Season One is so deliciously wrong, I just don't know where to begin. Archer's animated style and design is set firmly in the mod 60's, but yet seems to take place in the current age because of all of the modern technology at everyone's disposal. Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) is a super agent, codename Duchess, working for a secret espionage organization called ISIS. His supervisor, unfortunately, is his mother, Malory Archer (Jessica Walter), an oversexed and dominating woman completely obsessed with her now-dead dog, umm, Duchess. Archer's ex-girlfriend is fellow super agent Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler), a super hot black chick who is now dating ISIS's Comptroller and resident accounting nerd, Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell), much to Archer's chagrin. Throughout the season, the love/hate triangle between the three is the source of many jokes.

Then there's the head of HR, Pam (Amber Nash), who is on the larger side, but is always trying desperately to get someone in the office to sleep with her, preferably Lana Kane. Finally, there's Cheryl (Judy Greer), the bombshell secretary who will do anything to get Archer to notice and re-bed her, including changing her name throughout the season to whatever he is mistakenly calling her that day.

The show is no-holds-barred wrong and has no problem making fun of everyone and everything, including the curry-infused dry cleaner whose shop is a front for ISIS. One running gag is everyone (especially Archer) mocking Pam's weight, another is calling Lana's hands "monster hands" or "sausage fingers." If you are easily offended, this show is not for you.

Archer's espionage antics and adventures have him inadvertantly outing a mole at ISIS, having to pose as a "honeypot" lure for a gay Cuban spy, and also thinking he is being offered a job for a competing espionage agency, when the job is actually aimed at Lana, among many other things.

As for special features, they are somewhat light. There's an unaired network promo, some deleted scenes which mostly show male genitals or sex toys blurred out in the show, a series of making-of featurettes and the original unaired pilot. As for the making-of featurettes, I was pretty disappointed. They consisted of written information flashed on the screen on one side and the corresponding storyboards or images on the other side. They seemed pretty throw-away, to be honest. However, the unaired pilot is hysterical. Since the show uses 3D models in its animation, they were able to substitute a dinosaur for Archer and redo the pilot. It's ridiculous but insanely funny.

While only 10 episodes, the show is laugh-out-loud funny and anyone who loves a bit of clever and raunchy animated comedy will dig Archer. Check it out.



-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications
AKA Ashley Perkins
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