Archer

I've been looking forward to this show immensely for a few months. I only vaguely paid attention when I first watched its sneaky pilot after the season premiere of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia because I didn't want to miss it too much during the wait. The awesomeness of the pilot got through to me though and I'm glad that after these months of waiting, this episode was just as great. I've been watching Adult Swim since its inception and it's always managed to amuse me in the middle of the night. I also watch a good amount of FX so when I heard Adam Reed (co-creator of such awesome shows as Sealab 2021 and Frisky Dingo, et al) was developing a show for FX, I was pretty excited. Archer is my favorite so far--with hilarious dialogue delivered by amazing voice actors and simple yet engaging animation. I'm quite happy about this combination of Adult Swim type programming and FX and I hope it turns out to last.
Sterling Archer, codename Duchess, is a secret agent working for an organization run by his mother Malory called ISIS. He's basically a huge asshole with a mommy complex bordering on incestuous. No one seems to like him and though he's an expert in many spy skills, he doesn't seem to really even do any spying. Instead, he just indulges in all of the glamorized aspects of James Bond type espionage and abusing his butler Woodhouse. Also working for ISIS are his black ops ex-girlfriend Lana Kane, her new boyfriend Cyril Figgis, and a few office workers who all seem to spend more time spying and turning on one another than anything else. The incompetency and 'hostile work environment' of the agency are running gags throughout the show.

This episode’s exploits involved Archer's jealousy of Cyril for dating his ex, Lana. He's assigned by his mother with training Cyril in order to make him more attractive to Lana. Sterling, however, only really tries to sabotage their relationship by making Cyril think he's killed a hooker during a training exercise. Lana is no fool and angry spy girlfriend hilarity ensues with switchblade questioning at the snack and tampon machine and a high firepower car chase. Meanwhile the bitchy office workers drug up Malory because of a food allergy, snoop through medical records with their primary interest being who has herpes, and make some changes to the healthcare policy.

One of the big draws to watch for me was the voice actor of Archer, H. Jon Benjamin, who is just crazy amazing. He's always dead on with the delivery and natural conversational tone. I was happy to find that all of the voice acting is equally awesome and fitting in with the semi-realistic animation made the characters all seem really believable. Aisha Tyler (Lana), Chris Parnell (Cyril) and Judy Greer (Cheryl) were all so funny and only added to the brilliant script, nailing every joke. The script is full of quotable one-liners and quick witty exchanges and not short on being offensive as well. The show is fast paced with intriguing plotlines that don't seem to get too muddled to follow. The humor is raunchy and dark, full of pop culture references and tongue-in-cheek political incorrectness.

I really enjoyed the animation style as well. The characters looked like they were drawn in Illustrator and the backgrounds had a hand painted look. It reminded me a lot of Frisky Dingo with slightly more detail in the characters. It was animated in Flash, which I also enjoy because it seems like something anyone could do; it's like the lo-fi way of animating programs. It gives shows a low tech viral web video feel that I like because the lack of processing doesn't take away from the show itself.

I'd recommend this show to any fan of Adult Swim, FX, even Family Guy or other animated shows. And if for some reason you don't like cartoons, you should pull your head out of your ass because you're missing out. I've seen both episodes now multiple times and haven't tired of them. Now I just have to wait until next week for more of its crude humor.