FX's new animated "Archer" is one of those shows you're going to love or hate.
Put me down for love.
In the broadest sense, "Archer" is an irreverent, off-center satiric comedy centering on the off-center people who work at a spy agency called ISIS, for International Secret Intelligence Service.
These folks don't stop at being mostly just zany and out to lunch, like the cast of "The Office."
Being on cable and thus unbound by the rules of common decency, they talk and behave in ways that are sexist, racist, unsanitary, inappropriate and just wrong.
But "Archer" isn't aiming only to shock and use naughty words, which gets boring in about 30 seconds.
Instead, it's clever and funny. Creator Adam Reed showers us with a cascade of twisted comedy that invites everyone to come in and gasp.
"Archer" is the rare show that's in love with its own wordplay and good enough that this love becomes endearing rather than annoying.
The lead character is chiseled, hunky spy Sterling Archer (voiced by H. Jon Benjamin), and if he seems vaguely familiar, it may be because he bears more than a coincidental resemblance to chiseled, hunky Don Draper from Sterling Cooper in "Mad Men."
Archer is something like the world's greatest espionage agent. He also cheats on his expense account, routinely traffics in gender and racial stereotypes, and takes phone calls from his mother while he's in bed with his girlfriend Lana (Aisha Tyler).
"I can do both," he tells Lana.
Lana is now his ex-girlfriend and has quirks herself, like a fondness for interracial porn.
So she fits well at ISIS, where we first meet the boss, Malory (Jessica Walter), as she's having phone sex with a Russian general.
Did we mention Malory is Archer's mother?
With characters this rich, it's no surprise more of the action centers on the office crew than the actual espionage.
Consider, for example, the scene where Archer can't get into the computer room to doctor his expense accounts, so he fires a half dozen shots at the door.
The bullets ricochet back around the office, from whence a desperate voice cries, "Archer, what's wrong with you?"
To which Archer replies, "There's nothing wrong with me. You, on the other hand, have a bullet in you."
As this suggests, "Archer" not only studied at the feet of "South Park" and "The Simpsons," but "Airplane," "Police Squad" and other Leslie Nielsen classics.
Those were also shows viewers either loved or hated, and to those of us who loved them, the only problem was they eventually ran out of funny ideas and started feeling tired.
"Archer," on the other hand, just feels wrong. It's great.
