‘Archer’ Season 9 Goes Full Vintage With ‘Danger Island’

Alci Rengifo

FXX’s “Archer” continues to experiment with reinvention. Season 9 finds our favorite misogynist cartoon spy still trapped in a coma, his mind losing itself in dreamscapes. Following the events of the “Dreamland” season, Sterling Archer and the other characters have been recast as noir figures and 80s throwbacks. In this new variation, “Danger Island,” the show goes for 1940s nostalgia, taking on the look of an old B-flick. As a quirk the season premiere is funny, in the grand scheme of things we begin to wonder if the show keeps reinventing itself out of fatigue.

In a tropical hotel Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) awakens to find himself next to a distraught Charlotte Vandertunt (Judy Greer), who is the alternate version of Cheryl Tunt in this world. Archer is now an eye-patch wearing pilot, but still the same hard-drinking womanizer. In fact Charlotte is in tears because Archer seduced her while she was already on her honeymoon with a rich guy named Whitney Stratton IV (Jon Daly), who leaves the island in a fuss. Everyone else is back in new forms as well. Pam Poovey (Amber Nash) is now big and muscular and a seasoned explorer. Malory Archer (Jessica Walter) is still herself, except now she owns the hotel where Archer finds himself. Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler) is now island royalty as Princess Lanaluakalani. The Princess seeks to make a deal with a bumbling German spy posing as a businessman, Siegbert Fuchs, who is the dreamworld version of Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell). The biggest and most memorable change occurs with Dr. Algernop Krieger who here is transformed into a talking parrot named Crackers (Lucky Yates). The gang decides to get off the island and Archer is of course the only one capable of flying them out of there. But of course they will crash, setting the stage for a season of jungle adventure.

The last few seasons of “Archer” have essentially tried to keep the show’s signature humor intact while transferring the characters into new worlds. With Archer still in a coma, it is as if the showrunners have decided this is the perfect vehicle to play around with different identities and not depend on the same old scenarios. “Danger Island” works in general as comedy, especially with the way it riffs on old 1940s thrillers. There are winks here to movies like “Key Largo” in the vintage design and look, giving off the vibe of a 40s film set. The character of Ray Gillette is remade as a corrupt French police captain named Capitaine Reynaud (Adam Reed), who looks like Captain Renault in “Casablanca.” So for film buffs this will be a particularly fun season to watch. For “Archer” fans none of the show’s attitude is lost. Characters look at someone’s rump and share, “I would totally murder that.” Charlotte wishes a one-eyed Archer would die of “some eye cancer.” The show stealer is Crackers, who is so wildly funny that he could deserve a show all on his own. He makes the sober observations while everyone is going nuts, dances to the radio and has a charming cynical edge. One of his best moments comes when it looks like Archer might crash a plane and he starts issuing instructions for what to do, suddenly realizing Crackers could care less since he can fly (“is it awkward?”).

A lingering question that hovers over this season premiere, if not the whole season, is what any of this has to do with the continuation of “Archer” itself. Fans have been treated to multiple re-imaginings based on the fact that the character is locked in a coma. One more season of this and it will start to dawn that maybe after nearly a decade, “Archer” might be running out of gas. This could of course be mere speculation. Maybe there’s a bigger plan in store for when Archer finally snaps out of it. But it is as if “The Simpsons” simply switched to being all sci-fi one season, caveman show the next, and so on. That is not to say there isn’t funny material here, or interesting creativity. But eventually the show must decide to return to its original form.

“Danger Island” has the potential of being a wicked little pleasure. The opening salvo riffs on classic movies, while infusing the aesthetic with “Archer’s” politically incorrect tone. In a way this sort of satire makes sense, because this was always meant to poke fun at all those spy movies, a good many of them taking place in exotic locales. But fans are still left waiting for their hero to wake up.

“Archer” Season 9 premieres April 25 and airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on FXX.