Blu-ray Review Archer: The Complete Season Five Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

[Matt Hough]

Archer: The Complete Season Five Blu-ray Review

The producers of FX’s hit animated comedy series Archer decided on a reboot for its fifth season, so the agents and staff of the former ISIS spy organization have been closed down and turned into drug smugglers, but for anyone who knows anything about some of the hapless nincompoops that make up this team, it’s clear they’re going to be just as incompetent on the other side of the law as they were as international espionage agents. The show still offers an ample supply of belly laughs courtesy of the assorted loony toon characters, and the show’s adult-oriented, no-holds-barred approach to comedy has not been tempered in the slightest with this new variation with the storytelling this season.

Studio: Fox

Distributed By: N/A

Video Resolution and Encode: 1080P/AVC

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HDMA

Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French

Rating: TV-MA

Run Time: 4 Hr. 31 Min.

Package Includes: Blu-ray

keep case in a slipcover

Disc Type: BD50 (dual layer)

Region: A

Release Date: 01/06/2015

MSRP: $39.99

The Production Rating: 3.5/5

When an FBI agent (Gary Cole) arrives at ISIS headquarters and shuts operations down due to owner/operator Malory Archer’s (Jessica Walter) failure to obtain governmental permission to carry out international espionage, Malory must decide how she’s going to earn a living to keep herself in the high style and endless liquor that she finds necessary for survival. Of course, the 1,000 kilos of cocaine which she has in the vault promises to be helpful if she can get her staff consisting of son Sterling (H. Jon Benjamin), pregnant Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler), gay agent Ray Gillette (Adam Reed), one-time accountant Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell), suspicious, crack-headed house scientist Doctor Krieger (Lucky Yates), receptionist Pam Poovey (Amber Nash), and secretary Cheryl Tunt (Judy Greer) along with Archer's valet Woodhouse (George Coe) to aid her in selling her stash to the highest bidders. Of course, with no previous experience in drug dealing, the unfortunate squad manages to lose, give away, or have stolen most of it during the course of the season (that is, whatever Pam doesn’t manage to consume for herself; she quickly develops a serious coke habit).

In lucklessly trying to bring in some money through their shaky drug connections, the team comes back into contact with adversaries from previous seasons like the Yakuza as well as a three episode story arc with a Colombian drug cartel run by a mysterious personage called “The Godmother” and the season’s climactic four-episode arc as the team heads to San Marcos in Central America, now trading some illegally obtained weapons to a dictatorship engaged in a civil war. As snafus with the drug deals and weapons bargaining fail to bring in much money to the always mercenary Malory, she hits on another get-rich-quick scheme by turning Cheryl into an outlaw country singer named Cherlene with several episodes revolving around plots to get Cherlene to the Grand Ole Opry and establish her as the next great country music superstar.

The cast, particularly H. Jon Benjamin, Jessica Walter, and Aisha Tyler, are expert voice actors who wring all of the comedy out of their characters and have impeccable comic timing with their delivery of lines. True, the program pushes for comic effect by having most of the cast braying at one another to drive home their jokes (which can become less effective and more monotonous if one watches more than an episode or two at a time). The comedy is adult-oriented, however, and can be fall down funny in its concentration on the various characters’ mercenary natures, their constant craving for adulation and appreciation, and the secrets all of them keep close to their vests until they come out, almost always at the most inappropriate moments (though belching seems to be run into the ground a bit this season). On the other hand, the effectiveness of the cocaine-addicted Pam running gag peters out before the end of the season, and B-plots with the outlaw country singer Cherlene (which does have its uses in the otherwise A-plots in most episodes) likewise ceases itself to be fresh after the first half of the season. But the entire cast delivers in their scenes this season (Chris Parnell has more to do this year) even when the funny lines and situations aren’t quite up to earlier seasons. And the guest stars do wonderful work, too: from Gary Cole, Thomas Lennon, Ron Perlman, and Ron Leibman to George Takei, Kenny Loggins (naturally Sterling’s beloved “Danger Zone” gets a spin), and Christian Slater.

Here are the thirteen episodes contained on two Blu-ray discs in this fifth season set:

1 – White Elephant
2 – A Kiss While Dying
3 – A Debt of Honor
4 – House Call
5 – Southbound and Down
6 – Baby Shower
7 – Smugglers’ Blues
8 – The Rules of Extraction
9 – On the Carpet
10 – Palace Intrigue: Part I
11 – Palace Intrigue: Part II
12 – Filibuster
13 – Arrival/Departure

Video Rating: 5/5  3D Rating: NA

The series is presented in its television widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and these Blu-rays are faithful to that aspect ratio in 1080p resolution using the AVC codec. Sharpness is outstanding throughout the thirteen episodes, and while the show doesn’t go in for wildly saturated color or blindingly bright hues (except for an occasional sunset with bright, blazing oranges), the color present is also true and consistently rendered. All of the animated lines are firmly delivered and rock solid without any twitter, and there is also no banding present in any of the episodes. Each episode has been divided into 5 chapters.

Audio Rating: 4.5/5

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix on the discs has steadily improved over the years and now boasts a more immersive surround presence than in earlier seasons. Though most of the dialogue is placed in the center channel, there is occasional directionalized dialogue. The music gets a nice spread through the fronts and rears, and sound effects (including lots of explosions, crashes, and chaotic noise) have a bit more heft than in earlier seasons though perhaps bass presence could still be improved upon. Still, for a cable series, this has one of the more impressive sound mixes.

Special Features Rating: 2/5

“Midnight Blues” Music Video (3:54, HD): Cherlene Tunt warbles the song while characters from the show act out in pantomime a stormy marriage scenario.

Cherlene Tunt Interview (1:54, HD): the host of Wake Up Country interviews rising star Cherlene Tunt who seems to have no recollection of being a singing sensation.

Old Pam Poovey Had a Farm, the Musical (3:17, HD): Pam Poovey attempts to produce her own music video about environmental matters on the farm interrupted by Cyril.

Promo Trailers (HD): FX dramas, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

At its best, Archer is still hilarious with a great cast of voice actors truly living in these parts now, and with the sixth season returning to the espionage format which was so successful in the first four seasons, things are looking very bright for this first-rate animated series. Recommended!

Reviewed By: Matt Hough

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