Archer: 1999 is the tenth season of the animated television series, Archer, created by Adam Reed, and the final season for Reed as a full-time showrunner.[1][2] The third and final part of the "comadream" trilogy (preceded by Archer Dreamland and Archer Danger Island), consisting of nine episodes, it aired from May 29 to July 31, 2019, on FXX.[3]
Production
FXX announced that Season 10 would see a change in setting yet again, now with this series taking place in outer space.[3] As with the previous two seasons, the same voice cast would return as different versions of their characters. This means that Archer, who was found shot in actress Veronica Deane's pool after season seven, remains in a coma, and the events of the season are of his imagination.[1]
These different versions have similar personalities to their "normal" counterparts but are in different jobs or roles and have different relationships. The season's premise sees Archer as the hard-drinking half-captain (with Lana Kane as the other half-captain) of the spacefaring M/V Seamus salvage ship.[3][1]
This is the first season where creator Adam Reed has not written every episode for the season.
Synopsis
Sterling Archer, in his comatose dreaming, imagines that he is the captain of the "M/V Seamus (934TXS)", a space salvage freighter, co-captaining with his ex-wife Lana, with whom he is co-owner of the ship. Krieger is the android scientist/doctor on board, while Cyril is the onboard accountant as well as Lana's lover, and Ray is a gay courtesan (á la Inara Serra). Pam is a hulking rock golem-like alien, while Cheryl/Carole is a bloodthirsty/suicidal space fighter pilot, and "Mother", or Ms. Archer, is holographic AIavatar in the form of a glowing ball of light. Amongst the recurring characters are Barry-6, a rogue robotic space-pirate, and humanoid space-captain Brett.[4][5][6][7]
The crew has sci-fi space operatic adventures with the usual hijinks, which is inspired by the aesthetic and homage to Ridley Scott's Alien's space trucker crew. In the two last episodes late in the season, the borderline between dream and reality gradually begins to blur within its existence upon the sci-fi premise (which exists only in Archer’s imagination) as Archer gets flashes of the characters in their true forms and believes he is completely gone insane. At the end of the season, Sterling wakes from his coma in the hospital, three years after being shot.[8]
The spaceship MV Seamus is near Altair Beta on route to Earth with its crew in stasis. They are wakened up by the ship's computer AI, Malory who appears as a glowing orb, when it detects a ship wrecked by Dri'n pirates. They board the ship to salvage anything usable. After docking, a green, triangular, blob-like alien zeenamorph lifeform comes aboard their ship chased by Dri'n pirates but they manage to escape the wreck. The alien identifies himself as Bort from the planet Garj's moon and claims that he is from a wealthy family who would pay a reward for his return. They travel to Garj's moon, but discover it is a trap by the sentient, rogue robot Barry 6 and Dri'n pirates who plan to sell the crew as slaves.
Archer is strapped down by Barry 6 and tortured by a robotic bird named Funbeak to force Archer to reveal the location of the cargo he stole, but he refuses to talk. Barry 6 then informs the crew they have been entered into gladiator fights to the death for Bort's birthday party. Malory takes over Funbeak and frees Archer who pretends to be a gladiator. He manages to get the crew out of the arena, and back onto the ship and they fly off.
Back on their spaceship, Pam's sandwich filling turns out to be a creature with a massive appetite that eats their food supply. It also lays an endless supply of eggs, and the desperately hungry crew begins to eat them. However. the eggs cause the crew to behave unpredictably, releasing their deepest desires, including a massive increase in Archer and Lana's libidos. Cheryl eventually resolves the situation by ejecting the creature and its eggs into space.
The MV Seamus is swallowed by a giant space nautilus, with Cheryl left outside in their small pilot ship. They encounter another person, Glenda Price, captain of a starship that was also eaten by the Zarglorp and whose crew are all now dead. Left alone with Cyril while the others try to free their ship, Price tries to convince Cyril to kill himself so he can be eaten. When Archer discovers that Price was instrumental in the deaths and cannibalism of her crew, he appeals to her ego and convinces her to sacrifice herself by blowing up herself with her ship so the Zarglorp will expel the MV Seamus.
The MV Seamus is pulled out of hyperspace to find an ominous-looking space station looming over them. Malory sends the crew aboard it on a scavenger mission and they find a large number of crumbling corpses from a battle of thousands of years ago. They also encounter an android which is a lonely doomsday device who identifies himself as Mr. Deadly and insists they take him with them. They travel to Laki space station to try to get him interested in life experiences and prevent him from detonating, and after some time he decides to choose to live. However, after a shoot-out with two arms dealers, one lays dying and he asks Mr. Deadly to detonate. In desperation to save the crew, Archer throws a quantum singularity bomb at the android which sucks it into itself before reappearing elsewhere in the galaxy and creating an apocalyptic explosion.
The crew responds to a distress beacon but Archer causes their shuttle to crash land while mixing a cocktail. They follow the beacon through a jungle to find a replacement fuel cell. They find the other ship which has bodies of a crew similar to themselves except Krieger who suggests they may be in a doppelganger multiverse. Archer finds a fuel cell but they are stalked by a huge dinosaur-like beast. The crew becomes holed up in a cave but Archer installs the fuel cell in the shuttle, and after making a cocktail, he uses it to destroy the beast. On returning to the MV Seamus, Malory reveals that the other crew were clones produced by Krieger so she could double their productivity.
While Archer and Lana fight over whether to return to Earth, their ship exits hyperspace next to a Dri'n pirate battle cruiser. Malory and Archer decide to destroy the bounty so the crew make their way aboard and begin placing thermite explosives. They discover the cruiser carries a cargo of rare endangered Grimalkians which Archer calls "space ocelots". The cat-like creatures are strangely friendly to him but reject Lana's attempts to befriend them. When the crew is attacked and cornered by pirates in the trash compactor, Archer's pet Grimalkian summons the others who arrive and disintegrate the pirates. The crew safely returned to the MV Seamus with seconds to spare before the explosives detonated. However, their ship is now filled with Archer-loving Grimalkians.
The crew of the MV Seamus finds a mysterious, reflective cube and takes it aboard. It seems to have no discernable properties until it detects aggression and sucks Cheryl's head into itself when she gets angry but then releases her after she calms down. However, after it disappears, Archer starts experiencing hallucinations and seeing members of the crew as they appeared in earlier series. This completely disorientates him and after he attacks Lana, they throw him in to the cabin where to his surprise, he accepts a cocktail from Woodhouse.
The crew holds a mock trial to try Archer for Lana's assault due to his antisocial behavior. During the trial, Barry 6 crashes his ship into the MV Seamus and leads a boarding party of Dri'n pirates. The trial is postponed while Archer leads the crew in defense of the ship. Malory lures the attackers into the Holodeck which is outfitted like a western saloon, and Cyril kills all the pirates as they stream in. Barry 6 challenges Archer to a one-on-one battle while activating the MV Seamus self-destruct system, setting the timer for 2 minutes. Archer orders the crew to get to the escape pod despite Malory's refusal to leave Archer alone. As the crew flies off, Barry and Archer fight in the saloon and the spaceship explodes. Afterward, Archer has a flashback of many events in his life, culminating in him waking up from his coma in the hospital. Archer is incredulous when Malory tells him he's been there for 3 years. When Archer asks about Lana, Malory just says the important thing is that mother and son are together. The episode title is a reference to the movie Awakenings starring Robert De Niro.
