Farewell Archer, the unkillable spy comedy that never quite got the credit it deserved

After 14 seasons, the FX animated sitcom is finally drawing to a close. It’s an ending strangely lacking in fanfare, writes Louis Chilton, but there’s no denying the rare merits of its peak

Licence to chill: Sterling Archer (H Jon Benjamin) in the final season of ‘Archer’ (FXX)

How long must a TV series hang around before we decide to label it an “institution”? Five series? Ten? This week, US animated comedy Archer – a TV institution by most reasonable yardsticks – finally came to a close with the three-part finale of its 14th season. (The episodes debuted on FXX in the US; in the UK, the final season, minus the finale, arrived on Netflix last week.) Archer was always a mercurial and impressive work of pulp entertainment. Set in the world of professional espionage, the series starred H Jon Benjamin as the snarky, obnoxious but endlessly watchable James Bondalike Sterling Archer. After so many years, it’s hard not to feel like the response to Archer’s demise has been muted.

But then, the quippy spy series never quite got the credit it deserved, beyond a handful of awards (including four Emmys) and the adulation of a modest but devout fanbase. Of course, its marathon 14-season run would represent a major achievement in the world of live-action sitcoms, but the goalposts are considerably different within the realm of animation: Archer still falls well short of contemporaries such as American Dad! (20 series), Family Guy (22), South Park (26) and, of course, The Simpsons (a whopping 35). While Archer certainly shares strands of DNA with these series – lashings of Family Guy’s pop culture-literate reference humour, for instance – it also managed to carve out its own niche.

Eschewing the familial focus of most of its contemporaries, Archer was always a workplace sitcom at heart. Much of the comedy derived from the caustic quick-fire banter between Archer and his counterintelligence colleagues, voiced by Judy Greer, Chris Parnell, Aisha Tyler, Amber Nash, Lucky Yates, series creator Adam Reed and, until season 13, the late Jessica Walter. Jokes ranged from coarse innuendo to left-field cultural esoterica – you were just as likely to get a “that’s what she said” as a deep-cut allusion to a 17th-century philosopher. (Well, maybe not just as likely.)

Unlike most animated comedies, Archer was serialised. What’s more, the series also rejected the kind of generic visual style that had become de rigueur in the world of adult TV animation, and opted instead for something striking and unique: bold-outlined semi-realistic characters set against vivid and detailed backgrounds. What Archer lacked in hand-drawn fluidity of movement, it made up for in sheer design complexity. Even mundane moments were often elevated to a beauty that far outstripped what was required. The season 14 episode “Breaking Fabian”, for example – added to Netflix UK last week – featured several scenes aboard a train; through the window, we see a lush, almost painting-like vista whizz by. It’s a visual flourish that serves no real narrative or dramatic purpose, but epitomises part of Archer’s core appeal: this was a series that seldom phoned it in.

There may be other reasons why Archer’s finale has seemed to pass the world by. This was, after all, a TV series that died several times over. Way back in 2014, it completely overhauled its premise, transforming for a season into a highwire crime caper called Archer Vice. The following season saw Archer and co establish a detective agency, and – after a bullet left the titular character in a coma – they were subsequently reimagined as characters in a film noir (Archer Dreamland), adventure serial (Archer: Danger Island), and a space-set sci-fi (Archer: 1999). While the changes often amounted to mere window dressing – and the series eventually returned to the original timeline and premise – the willingness to completely upend its own premise time and again is almost unheard of, especially within the staidly repetitive world of animated sitcoms.

There will be some who deem Archer’s ending overdue; as is the case with any series that runs for more than a decade, fans have bemoaned a perceived creative stagnation in the later years. But to fixate on the question of a “decline” is now beside the point. For the duration of its run, Archer was one of the sharpest and funniest animations on TV. It’s a blessing that it was able to go out on its own terms.

‘Archer’ is available to stream on Netflix in the UK