First Details of Archer: 1999 Revealed

Fans at New York Comic-Con were given their first official look at Archer: 1999, the 10th season of FX's raunchy spy-turned-anthology cartoon--and it's just as crazy as you'd expect.

The cast has been reimagined as the crew of an extremely 80s sci-fi flavored spaceship, complete with all the archetypal roles. Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) and Lana (Aisha Tyler) are the co-captains of the vessel, Malory Archer (Jessica Walters) is the ship's computer who splits her time between being a holographic human and a glowing ball of light, Cyril (Chris Parnell) is a put-upon crew member, Krieger (Lucky Yates) is a humanoid robot, and Pam (Amber Nash) is a giant alien rock monster.

Executive producer Matt Thompson introduced the new cast of this season's genre flip by showing a 10-minute, never-before-seen clip that featured Archer waking up from stasis, interacting with "Mother" (Malory as a computer) and eventually waking up the rest of the crew as he decided to try and scavenge supplies from the wreckage of a vessel that had been wrecked by space pirates.

By far the most jarring reinterpretation was Pam who has become, which Nash delighted in and described as "The Thing with eczema." Having only just begun production, even she wasn't entirely sure what Pam's new story was. "I'd like to know where she's from, what her deal is," Nash said, before laughing, "in Episode 2, we learn that whatever kind of creature she is, when she gets aroused, she gets a boner you can 'smell,' which is really unsettling."

Look, after 10 seasons, don't pretend like you didn't know what to expect from this show.

Krieger's inspiration is clearly Ash, the android from the 1979 classic Alien--a homage Yates said would be emphasized by Krieger's "milk blood." Yates continued, "I don't know if he's going to end up good or evil, but I do know that he has that." Fans also learned that Archer and Lana, while they are co-captains, are divorced in this season, so "they don't have to pretend not to hate each other," laughed Thompson.

The cast revealed some upcoming running gags, including "just putting the word 'space' in front of any random word," Thompson said. Jon Benjamin chimed in that that included the show's "phrasing" joke, which was now "space-phrasing" for 1999.

Though Thompson admitted that the plan for Archer was never to go the anthology route, 1999 represents the forth anthology-style season after Vice, Dreamland, and last year's Danger Island. As for the future, and any potential returns to the show's spy-thriller origin, Thompson couldn't comment but said that he and the writers would definitely like to get back to basics at some point. Meanwhile Yates quickly chimed in that he'd like to see the anthology style take the Archer crew to a post apocalyptic "wasteland" style genre next, should the show continue for an 11th season.

Archer: 1999 debuts on FXX in 2019.