Sploosh! ‘Archer’ Just Got Renewed For Three More Seasons
How's it going to fix that season seven finale?
Spoilers for the season seven finale of Archer.
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When we last saw Archer Sterling in the season finale of Archer earlier this month, he was floating dead in a pool; his body riddled with bullet holes. This understandably shocked some fans — it’s a gutsy move to gun down your titular character and it feels quite definitive to have his murderer then stand over his body and mutter “goodnight sweet prince”. But you know what’s gutsier? Doing all this, then casually announcing a three-season renewal right off the back of it.
FX has confirmed overnight that Archer will be returning for three shortened (eight episode) seasons from 2017.
It's a renewal RAMPAAAAAAAAGE. See you next year. #ArcherFX https://t.co/WxgMFvzBJt
— Archer (@ArcherFX) June 21, 2016
“We can’t say enough about what Adam [Reed], Matt [Thompson] and the entire Archer team have done to keep this series so insanely funny and vital through seven seasons,” said FX President of Original Programming, Nick Grad, in a statement this morning. “The move to Los Angeles this past season as private detectives was just the latest twist in Archer’s legendary exploits and the next three seasons will be just as amazing and unpredictable.”
There’s a very strong argument that killing off characters (or at least pretending to do so) isn’t as “amazing and unpredictable” as it once was in the world of post-Ned Stark TV. Anyone still watching Game of Thrones or anything made by Shonda Rhimes will tell you it’s lost a little of its punch. But in a show as absurd and unique as Archer, the real excitement may be in how the creators plan to inevitably bring him back.
As soon as the credits ran after his death, William Hughes at AV Club was throwing around possibilities for his resurrection: “Cyborg? Clone? Dream? Alternate universe? Those damn aliens?” Likewise, Charles Bramesco at Vulture matter-of-factly asserted “Sterling Archer cannot possibly be dead”. “Bold reinvention has emerged as a cornerstone of Archer‘s artistic identity, but it’d still be a stretch to eliminate the title character for the show’s next season,” he wrote. “In the best-case scenario, creator Adam Reed will contrive some way to drag Archer back from the other side and treat his near-death experience with appropriate gravity, meaning that this wasn’t all for nothing.”
It’s either that or he’s gone for good which, nope, I refuse to contemplate. A show without Jon H. Benjamin is no show at all.