Did you even realize Archer has been on for 12 seasons? The FX favorite launched in 2009, all the way back during the first year of the Obama administration. Somehow it’s kept the quality control in tact across three separate decades. And surely they’ll try to keep it going with the newly greenlit 13th season, with one new hurdle: They’ll have to do with without one of their key cast members, Jessica Walter.
The acclaimed actress and Arrested Development alum passed away in March at the age of 80. She’s long voiced Malory Archer, mother to H. Jon Benjamin’s sorta-hero Sterling Archer and at one point head of the show’s covert but bumbling intelligence agency. Though it may be hard to imagine the show without her withering line readings, the show won’t simply move on. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the loss will be “creatively addressed” in the 13th season. Whatever that means — repurposing unused Walter recordings? Something truly outside the box? — is something fans will have to wait another year to see.
As it happens, new Archer episodes are currently airing, with Walters in-tact. The 12th season began its run in late August, with two more episodes left to debut. The seventh of eight episodes airs on Wednesday, September 29.
(Via THR)