This is a very common narrative that many people have for the show. And I sort of get where it's coming from. The show was more innovative and surprising in its early seasons and more of a meta-commentary of reality competition shows and not just a reality competition show. It was also much lower budget and much less…

I think it fits because it wasn't so long ago that Sarah herself was considered young and irresponsible. At the beginning of the show she'd completely lost custody of Kira due to her criminality and drug use. I don't think Sarah has really come into her own and is respected as a mother. It's more of an "it takes a…

This was definitely better than the Season Premiere, which was overall pretty weak. It was engaging, with all the different clone groups acting with agency and decent, non-over-convoluted plans. There were even two clone swaps including one we've never seen before (Sarah for MK).

There was a Miss Congeniality though. Her name was Peppermint.

I thought "Extremis" was an all time great and I thought the three monks episodes were among the best multi episode arcs the show has ever done, despite the problems with how the third part ended. I don't think any of the episodes have been outright bad, though a couple were lackluster including this one. I've liked…

I assumed the same and I very much like Peppermint. But, the difference is I STILL thought it was her time to go. Though her performance was good this week her body of work just wasn't strong enough over the season. There should've been a real one on one LSFYL instead of this four person bullshit and Peppermint…

I think this is something that's going on with all reality TV and especially reality competition TV. When the genre was newer participants weren't as savvy to how they would come off with cameras on them 24/7, weren't as savvy to the power of the edit, weren't as savvy to the way producers would try to manipulate…

I feel like this season actually messed with the structure of the show a lot and mostly people complained about it, though I mostly didn't mind. I feel like if they did away with canonical challenges like Snatch Game, puppets, library, etc. most of the fan base would rebel.

I agree. The plot has gotten so crazy now it would be better if there was more of a sense of humor than taking everything so seriously.

My list of great first seasons is a lot more quirky and annoyingly contrarian:

Me too. I see zero real evidence of this alleged switch to Kinja anywhere. I'd be very surprised if it's true.

I maintain that the first season was up there among some of the best first seasons of any drama of the last decade. The second season was a big step down but was still good. The plotting really went off the rails since then I agree with a slight return the form in the last season before this one. But yeah, I mostly…

There was the time I lost all that money to those card sharps or the time Pinky Tuscadero crashed her motorcycle . . .

I mean yeah well "skewered" or whatever I guess in terms of actual human psychology but that's not the level the aliens' weird rules are supposed to be operating on. They're fucking evil magic aliens who are operating according to their own weird logic that hasn't been revealed to us yet. It's not meant to be the most…

Meh

This is the first season I haven't liked as a whole but there are some funny episodes with funny banter, particularly in the first 4-5 eps.

But it's not meant to be a "real noir". It's Archer playing with noir tropes, which brings different anticipations. Not to mention the entire noir reality was a dream he was having in a coma and a lot of people were hoping for a resolution of what happened in THAT reality by the end.

It really annoyed me that not only was nothing resolved viz a viz Archer's coma status etc. but virtually nothing was resolved within the "Dreamland" noir parody either! Yes some of this is true to the genre but c'mon!

I thought the first few episodes were up there with the funniest Archer eps ever. And I really liked the premise at first. I thought the first maybe 5 episodes were funny in and of themselves even if they didn't really add up to anything. But the last 3 and especially the final 2 were down there with the worst things…

I've disagreed with Oliver and others that this season was weak because it had worse structure, challenges, and editing, and I certainly this agree with those making the more extreme case that the show has taken some huge step down due to the change in networks. However, I begrudgingly admit that this season has a…