14) Archer
Four seasons in, Archer was starting to feel a little tired, with the traditional ‘mission’ episodes all blurring together and the development of characters slowing down to a crawl. The showrunners knew this evidently, because their first order of business in season 5, codenamed Archer Vice, entailed blowing everything they had so carefully created throughout the show’s length to smithereens. Gone were the familiar ISIS office and the missions to topple foreign governments and beat enemy spies.
Instead, season 5 found Archer and the rest of the gang breaking bad, going from spies at least possibly playing for the right team to cocaine smugglers definitely up to no good. It was a creative reboot that did its job smashingly, turning Archer into a bona fide criminal mastermind, Cheryl into a brainwashed country singer named Cherlene, Pam into a voluptuous cocaine addict and Lana into a baby mama (that last one permanently). The ways in which the characters evolved and their relationships grew more complicated were a riot to watch.
Of course, Archer Vice appears to have been a one-and-done, with season 6 bringing the gang (minus their acronym, for obvious reasons) back to the office, but it was a hell of a lot fun while it lasted. Let’s hope the writers over at Archer know that if the show’s mission-of-the-week stories ever start to feel thin again, all of us fans are already clamoring for a Vice sequel.