The seventh season of Archer will be different. The colors in the title sequence have changed. Disgraced and abandoned by their fellow spies in the CIA, the gang is now out in Los Angeles, taking a hack at the private eye game in an office seemingly modeled after Mad Men’s high-flying Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce office.
So it’s time, while we have any time left. Time to look at the seven ways Sterling Archer and the rest of his jolly gang owe to the ultimate cinematic spy: Ian Fleming’s Agent 007, James Bond—the ultimate movie spy. James may have five decades of derring-do on Sterling, but we feel it’s worth noting where Archer has gamely carried on the traditions of espionage Bond pioneered. And whether he’s dabbling at playing cocaine dealer or gumshoe, Archer will always be the “World’s Greatest Spy” of our hearts. We just can’t help but look back at what we’ve loved about the show’s covert roots.
The obnoxiously specific drink order
We begin with the “Martini. Shaken, not stirred.” For seven seasons, Sterling Mallory Archer has echoed James Bond’s high-functioning alcoholism to an astonishing degree. When he’s not crushing bottles of Glengoolie Blue, Archer’s a stickler for his classic cocktails, obsessing over ingredients and minutiae while getting progressively drunker. How can someone with such distinguished tastes also stumble his way through the Liquor Mart bargain bin before winding up at a bar chugging Green Russians? Only Archer has the answer.
The doomed femme fatale
Women in spy movies may catch bullets faster than rom-com leads find their soulmates, but over the years a few have managed to capture their heroes hearts. For 007, that means women like Vesper Lynd and Tracy Bond. For Archer, Katya Kasanova was his ultimate partner-in-crime, sporting the clichéd look of a typical Bond Girl and obvious throwbacks to From Russia With Love. She’s a capable, badass agent in her own right, and as out of her mind as Archer is. That deep connection causes Sterling a world of pain when she meets the same fate as her thematic predecessors.
The architect of pain
In life, we all burn bridges. In the spy world, bridges burn you—and the people who know us the best also burn us the best. The Bond franchise runs liberally along that track, consistently inventing and reinventing allies and adversaries alike to creep from out of 007’s shady past. Archer lifts this concept and slaps it right onto Other Barry’s stupid cyborg face. Nemeses like Barry and the legendary Ernst Stavro Blofeld use their knowledge of the heroes’ psychology to inflict pain deeper than broken bones. Worst of all, they never stay dead. In spite of all Archer’s endless efforts, Barry comes back time after time to break him, killing Katya and seducing her right from out of his arms. And that at Archer and Katya’s wedding—on both occasions, mind you! We’d shoot these guys into to space. In Bond’s case, we’d throw them down a smokestack, too.
The in-office romance
It’s easy to understand James Bond’s sex appeal. He makes heterosexual boys (regardless of their age) wonder what it could be like to be the ultimate alpha bro, surrounded by willing women and uninhibited by, well, reality. To its credit Archer, when portraying that behavior, treats it like the trainwreck it’d actually be in an office setting. Sterling actually has a child with his co-worker (who happens to be capable of kicking his ass), and at one point in Season 6, the characters collectively look at each other and realize, yes, they have all seen Pam’s vagina already — and she’s HR! It’s hysterical, but you’d kind of think that sex this adventurous, office sexual harassment, and children of potentially unknown parentage would get in the way of MI6’s productivity after a while.
The globetrotting
Spy flicks whisk us away to exotic locations, putting us right next to the hero’s fist as he bashes in a stereotypical henchman in the face with an ashtray. Archer assembles its misfits in many classic Bond locations, from The Swiss Alps to outer space to the casinos of Monte Carlo. Settings like these allow the show to explore and expand its color palette while animating sweeping, beautiful sequences like the epic avalanche in Season 6’s “The Archer Sanction.” Archer may be an office sitcom disguised as a spy show, but it’s moments like these that remind us of what it can pull off.
The cover-ups
James Bond has Universal Exports, Archer has Randy. A good cover story is crucial for making your way into high-profile parties and secret military sites. In the pre-digital days, charades were all Bond needed to begin the delicate dance of espionage. Technology made a lot of that useless, but since when has something’s lack of use ever stopped Archer? From learning the wrong dead language to enter the Vatican to committing to a full-on fanboy impersonation of a sous chef, Sterling Archer always goes too deep. Once there, he has all the fun in the world and very little knowledge of what to do…until the bullets start flying.
The fractured childhood
Both Archer and Bond (especially in Daniel Craig’s iteration) show that in spite of otherwise enviable skillsets and career paths, there is one prerequisite to becoming a calculated killing machine: a childhood of neglect and emotional trauma. As Dame Judy Dench’s M notes, “Orphans always make the best agents.” Whether that means the literal loss of one’s family or an upbringing as the unlucky progeny of Malory Archer, the result is the same—debilitating alcoholism and exceptional marksmanship scores. We know two spies who could drink to that.
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