10 TV Shows Which Insult Your Intelligence
5. Archer
The whole “it was all a dream” writing trick has been used by movies and TV shows for as long as anyone can remember. Dallas, anyone? Or St. Elsewhere?
Most of the time, it doesn’t play well, as audiences usually don’t respond well to being told everything they’ve just sat through basically didn’t count. For a modern take on this time-honoured tactic, there’s animated adult spy drama, Archer.
At least, it used to be about spies.
The show’s seventh season ended with the main character Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) falling into a coma, where he would stay for the next three years. For the following three seasons, the action took place inside his mind, changing genre from noir detective to action-adventure to science-fiction.
Whilst this was a nice way of keeping the show fresh, the longer these coma dreams went on, the more it felt like the audience was wasting its time. When Archer finally woke up at the end of season 10, it was almost like the previous three seasons never even happened.
That’s a lot of pointless episodes.