For its past few seasons, the animated series Archer has been more like an anthology series, re-inventing itself each year with the same voice cast, but changing up the genre, characters and their environment. For the show’s eighth season, the series became a noir detective mystery, with the characters taking on different roles in a dreamworld inside Archer’s head. However, for the show’s ninth season, Danger Island, things are switched up to a larger degree. While the characters are once again not quite themselves, they still have a lot of the same personality traits we’ve come to love. Archer still drinks a lot, loves female companionship, hates his mother, and makes lots of sarcastic remarks.

Danger Island is set in 1939, on the Pacific Island of Mitimotu in the South Pacific, where Sterling Archer’s mother Mallory (Jessica Walter) owns a local hotel, through which she operates several other enterprises. Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) is very much the same self-centered jerk he’s always been, but is now a one-eyed, eye patch-wearing pilot for Sterling Airlines, a small business that flies folks around the island. His co-pilot is Pam (Amber Nash), who is now a 6-foot-5, muscular, rough and tough jungle guide. And in this season, Dr. Krieger is gone, replaced by a wisecracking talking macaw named Crackers (Lucky Yates), who hangs out with Archer and Pam.

Ray is no longer a cyborg, but rather a corrupt local French police Capitaine Reynaud (Adam Reed) whom Mallory pays to look the other way when it comes to the illegal businesses she runs out of the hotel. Staying at the hotel is heiress Charlotte Vandertunt (Judy Greer), whose life is falling apart ever since she cheated on her husband—during her honeymoon—with Archer. And things only get worse when she finds herself sucked into one of Mallory’s illicit enterprises.

Meanwhile, Princess Lanaluakalani (Aisha Tyler) charters a flight on Archer’s plane. He immediately suspects that this woman is hiding some sort of secret agenda. The princess is joined by foreign “businessman” Siegbert Fuchs (Chris Parnell), who is obviously not who he says he is, but rather some sort of German spy.

Danger Island is a bit lighter and sillier than some of the show’s past seasons, but the series feels just as fun and fresh as ever in its ninth season. The short 8-episode season makes for a quick binge, playing out like one long adventure as various groups of characters each find their way to Danger Island in search of the same hidden treasure, a golden idol. There are lots of twists and turns along the way, from spies to cannibals, quicksand, booby traps, giant komodo dragons, snakes, monkeys, and an exploding volcano. There’s lots of excitement and adventure that awaits over the course of the 160-minute adventure.

It’s wonderful how the writers are able to find new ways to make each season feel not only like a brand new, self-contained story, but also just another adventure with the familiar characters we’ve come to know and love over the years.

Like the show’s past few seasons, Archer: Danger Island is only being released on DVD, even though the series airs in HD on FXX. That said, the picture quality on the DVD still looks quite good and I can’t really find any negatives to say about it—this style of animation seems to be very forgiving in SD. The audio track provides a nicely immersive, exciting viewing experience while also keeping dialogue clear throughout the episodes. The episodes are available for purchase digitally in HD, but this DVD also includes a number of bonus features that aren’t included with the digital version. This includes a four part, 13-minute behind-the-scenes look at the animation studio, and a fun Comic-Con presentation starring Crackers. All 8 episodes along with the bonus material are contained on a single DVD disc, which comes in a standard DVD case without a slipcover.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (2:41:22)

• All 8 episodes of season 9:
  “Strange Pilot”, “Disheartening Situation”, “Different Modes of Preparing the Fruit”, “A Warrior in Costume”, “Strange Doings in the Taboo Groves”, “Some Remarks on Cannibalism”, “Comparative Wickedness of Civilized and Unenlightened Peoples”, “A Discovery”
• 480i/ Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French

Extras:

• Inside Look: Making Archer (13:33)
  Amber Nash (“Pam Poovey”) heads to Flloyd County Productions in Atlanta, GA to take viewers on a four-part behind-the-scenes look at how an episode of the series comes together. She is joined by Lucky Yates (“Crackers”) in a black leotard, pretending to bring a Crackers doll to life, and assuming his human form will be green-screened out of the featurette. Includes behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews with executive producer Matt Thompson, animation director Megan Johnson, art director Chad Hurd, co-executive producer Casey Willis, associate art director/storyboard supervisor Justin Wagner, lead storyboard artist Taylor Parrish, editor Christian Danley, producer/editor Pierre Cerrato, storyboard artist/senior illustrator Courtney Hicks, storyboard artist/illustrator Eric Warren, illustration editor Fernando Vazquez, associate illustration director/senior illustrator Amanda Todd, animation director Megan Johnson, lead animator Yûsuke Satô, senior illustrator/animation coordinator/costumes & styling Chaz Zoubek, background director/painter Diego Penuela, and 3D animation director/lead 3D artist Chris Appel. Play All, or select from:
  • Part 1 (3:43)
    An overview of the operations before looking at the voice-over actors recording their parts.
  • Part 2 (3:32)
    First the art directors talk about breaking down the script, then the storyboard artists discuss how they turn the script into drawings/storyboards, and finally the editors explain how they attach the audio and effects to the storyboards to create an animatic.
  • Part 3 (3:39)
    A look at how the photo reference team takes photos to help the animators see how the characters and clothing should look and flow. Then a look at how the illustrators draw and layer the characters and props, and how the after effects team brings the animations, backgrounds, and audio all together.
  • Part 4 (2:54)
    A look at how the secondary, more-traditional animation from the Harmony department, the backgrounds, and the 3D things like vehicles get blended into the final product.
• Crackers’ Costumed Playings (3:31)
  Crackers shows off his cosplay costumes to the San Diego Comic-Con audience, which include Cyclops, Thundercats, Dr. Krieger, and Thanos.

Final Thoughts:

Even in its ninth season, Archer continues to be a hilarious, creative series that’s not afraid to shake things up and try new things. Danger Island finds the series changing up the characters in a fun way, and taking on the action/adventure genre. I enjoyed this season even more than last season’s noir detective tale. FOX’s DVD release looks and sounds great (though I would have preferred a Blu-ray release since the series airs in HD). The disc also includes a small assortment of bonus material, which fans of the series should definitely enjoy. Since the season is one self-contained story, even those unfamiliar with the series can jump right in and enjoy this season as a fun 160-minute homage to Tales of the Gold Monkey. Those who don’t care about the bonus material may prefer to pick up the episodes digitally in HD. Either way, this season comes recommended.