From its very first episode, Archer established itself as one of the smartest comedy shows on TV. With dialogue sharp as an assassin’s knife and characters whose moral compasses could use some realignment, the animated espionage drama blew up all the classic spy tropes with a pound of C4 lit by a series of sick burns. The protagonist, Sterling Archer, is the world’s deadliest spy, a parody of James Bond whose drinking and womanizing came with actual consequences.
Unfortunately, after ten seasons, the show is not quite as fresh as it once was. While the last three seasons took it in new creative directions, some of the long-running jokes went from being funny to stinking worse than a three-day-old corpse. These ten gags, in particular, have not aged well.
Duchess
Sterling Archer is supposed to be the greatest secret agent in the world, working for the privately-run spy agency ISIS. Operating under the unfortunate code name of Duchess (named for his mother’s dog), Archer has survived being attacked by multiple Cuban hit squads, crash landing a space shuttle, and fighting a terrorist atop a moving train. Despite that, he’s still a walking punchline of ineptitude.
It’s hard to laugh at a code name like Duchess after watching Archer pull off so many awesome stunts. It’s also hard to take him seriously given his buffoonish antics. Thankfully, the name “Duchess” doesn’t seem to come up as often as it used to.
Ray’s Legs
One of the top field agents at ISIS, Ray is a sassy gay man whose sexuality was the butt of numerous jokes in early seasons. While the casual homophobia grew tiresome as social morays outpaced the characters’ dated views, Ray eventually became paralyzed from the waist down, bringing on a whole new series of jokes at his expense.
Being unable to walk, Ray adapted as best he could, learning to roll with the punches as both his manhood and his injuries were openly mocked. While this was funny for a while, the jokes started going nowhere fast.
Burt Reynolds
Archer’s childhood hero is the actor Burt Reynolds. Sterling frequently references movies like Gator, White Lightning, and Deliverance. At one point, Archer even met his hero–just before learning that the action star was about to go on a date with his mother. Sterling kidnapped Burt, but the two eventually came to an understanding.
Since the actor’s passing back in 2018, jokes about Burt Reynolds seem like grim and tasteless jabs at his expense. Archer might still love the action star, but the show should probably lay these jokes to rest.
KGB
From the very first episode, the KGB played a major role in the show. A KGB mole that had infiltrated ISIS had the first speaking line of the whole series, while Sterling’s mother Malory Archer enjoyed a 40-year romance with Nikolai Jakov, who ran the KGB. In a classic throwback to James Bond, the Soviets comprised the main rival nation of early seasons.
The problem here is that the show first aired in 2009–20 years after the Soviet Union came to an end. The show’s writing staff missed opportunities to tell jokes about the Russian mob or Putin’s idiosyncrasies in favor of dated tropes about Russians waiting in Soviet bread lines. Frankly, the modern Russian spy network GRU would have made for more relevant and interesting stories.
Carol, AKA Cheryl, AKA…
One of the major characters of the series is the neurotic choke-addicted office assistant at ISIS, Carol. Or is it Cheryl? Or, wait…Charlene? Then again, for a while she was going by Cristal. And by Cariña. Not to mention when she was known as “Charlotte Vandertunt” in Archer Dreamland. As evidenced by the six first names she’s had listed just in this paragraph, “Carol” (as she’ll henceforth be called) has a bit of an identity crisis.
Audiences love Carol. Her out-of-touch aloofness, wealthy background, poor romantic choices, and love of asphyxiation all add to the show. But keeping her names straight has just gotten tedious.
Malory’s Classism
Sterling’s mother Malory runs ISIS. A genuinely unlikeable person, her character flaws are basically all that exists of her character. She’s a petty vindictive racist alcoholic bully who treats human rights like toilet paper and treats her son like a whipping boy.
As terrible of a person as Malory is, at least all of those traits are funny. An aspect of her personality that hasn’t aged as well is her classism. Malory likes the finer things in life. She’s literally killed for nice things. She just doesn’t think others deserve anything nice. Sterling was just one of many people she was willing to let die to avoid paying the price of a ransom/rescue. With wealth inequality the worst it’s been in living memory, such jokes are in poor taste.
Cyborg Barry
Barry is arguably Sterling’s greatest enemy. The agent worked for the rival spy agency ODIN and once shared a penetrating mission with Archer’s ex, Lana. Archer has done a fair bit to hurt Barry too, like dropping him off a building (twice!) and sleeping with his fiancée. Then Barry was turned into a cyborg by Soviet scientists.
Archer has a paralyzing fear of cyborgs, so this made for a nice dramatic twist. Unfortunately, the cyborg gimmick quickly grew as tiresome as the Terminator franchise–and like both Terminator and Barry–it refused to die.
Pam’s Personality Changes
When the show began, Pam was little more than the office gossip with insecurities about her weight. As the series continued, she was fleshed out more (with one of the changes being to give her a cocaine addiction that reduced just how fleshy she was). She also was revealed to be a Midwestern dairy farmer, a former boxer, and a drag racer with yakuza connections.
While it has been nice to watch Pam grow, eventually she changed for the worse, regressing into an infantile baby whose sole interests were coke and sex. Like with an actual baby, her slobbery tantrums weren’t funny; they were just loud and obnoxious.
Archer’s Voice Mail
Imagine trying to call Sterling Archer. Maybe he answers the phone and there’s the roar of gunfire in the background as he dodges enemy assailants. Or perhaps one hears the sounds of him on a date, his favorite ping pong paddle slapping against skin. Except chances are that Archer hasn’t picked up his phone at all and these are just immature answering machine messages he’s pre-recorded.
This joke was genuinely funny for a season or two. By the end, it was just an unfortunate part of his character, all noise and no substance. Despite that, the voice messages were still more tolerable than some of his face-to-face interactions.
Lana’s Man Hands
As Archer’s on-again-off-again partner, Lana Kane is one of the most important people on the show. She’s a passionate environmentalist and incredibly skilled field agent, while her knockout good looks are praised by men and women alike.
Despite her beauty, it’s her exceptionally large hands that are the physical trait most frequently discussed. These oversized flesh gauntlets have been compared to Truckasaurus, the baseball pitcher Johnny Bench, and the rabbit-strangler Lenny from Steinbeck’s book Of Mice and Men. The repetition of these mean-spirited remarks has gotten to be quite a handful.
