‘Genie in a Bottle’ is a new recurring feature where each week a different bottle episode (an episode set entirely in one location, often designed to save money) from a comedy series is examined.
“[Bottles episodes are] the sad little stepchild whose allowance is docked in order to buy big brother a new pair of sneaks.” This is what the executive producer and director from The Shield, Scott Brazil, had to say about the restrictive type of television episode that a large amount of shows have adopted at one point or another.
Bottle episodes are an interesting phenomenon, having been present since the early days of television, and are hardly going out of style now. Primarily designed to save on production expenses, they often end up being creative highlights of their respective series, and displays of the handicapped show working even harder to impress you.
The term bottle episode originated on Star Trek, of all places, due to the series often setting episodes entirely on the ship as a means of saving money. The tactic was resorted to so often that the phrase “Ship in a bottle”, referring explicitly to the Enterprise, was adopted into the vernacular. Soon these ship-in-a-bottle episodes became a staple of the sci-fi series and its many spin-offs, with many being fans’ favorites.
While there is a long and storied history of comedies experimenting with bottle episodes, it seems appropriate to kick off with Archer’s “Vision Quest”, considering this might be one of the most recent examples of it happening (the episode only aired on February 5th). So let’s strike while the bottle iron is still hot!
“Vision Quest” starts off innocuously enough as so many classic bottle episodes do, with everyone piling into an elevator only for it to get stuck on them, trapping them all inside. What follows is an episode entirely contained in this elevator (pretty much) and plays out in real-time as they attempt to get out. A show like Archer is more than capable of taking longstanding tropes and devices and subverting them to a delightful degree, so when Archer, Lana, Pam, Cheryl, Ray, Cyril, and Krieger get trapped in that elevator, it’s a reason to be excited rather than frustrated.
It’s kind of perfect that an episode about team building (and one which revolves around a failed team building endeavor) is such a showcase for this ensemble cast. It wouldn’t be surprising to have a bottle episode that’s merely a team building exercise (or even them actually watching Vision Quest together for the episode’s entirety), but what’s so smart about this piece is that it’s not that, and everyone merely ends up turning the situation into a messed up trust exercise. It’s an episode constantly towing the line between breaking and keeping with expectations.
With everyone confined to such tight quarters, this episode is also a showcase of how exceptional this voice cast truly is. Jon Benjamin, Aisha Tyler, Judy Greer, Chris Parnell, Amber Nash, and Lucky Yates have all mastered their characters six seasons in, but this episode is one of the best reminders of that, with everyone getting a moment to shine. It’s remarkable that they all record their lines separately, as the chemistry is so strong amongst them, especially in an episode like this where they’re just bouncing off of each other.
Even more than the cast though, “Vision Quest” is a triumph and testament to Archer’s naturalistic writing, style, and energy that these characters have been establishing over six seasons. It’s even the reason why this bottle episode was done now rather than the first season, where the temptation must have loomed (Reed is no stranger to bottle episodes, as his previous efforts Sealab 2021 and Frisky Dingo have indicated). Even Archer’s third season episode, “Lo Scandolo”, flirts with the idea of being a bottle episode, but is very differently executed than this one. “Vision Quest” feels more representative of the concept and it works better because it’s the culmination of everything this show and its characters have been building. It’s the sort of episode where jokes can be properly set up, executed, and called back to at a frenzied degree. This is always on point with Archer, but it really gets to shine in this episode, and there’s a particularly rapid-fire nature to the humor. Archer is such a verbose, language heavy show, and this episode is simply feasting on all of that as these characters are forced to do nothing but talk. They can’t escape from it.
What this bottle episode also smartly does which only enhances all of the above merits, is that in what’s a very claustrophobic episode, it actually feels very claustrophobic. Everyone is trapped in this elevator, and while the camera could play with cramped location a little and get creative, it doesn’t. You’re often being presented the same sort of shots throughout the episode, rather than say an overhead view of everyone or looking at the much-discussed floor. Keeping it simple and focused on the characters, again maintains them as the focus.
The idea of bottle episodes only being used as a means to save money is certainly an outdated one. That being said, this probably is an episode that did end up coming in cheaper. It’s essentially just the elevator set-up, besides a few other incidentals. Not that this show needs to be worried about saving money, I’m sure, but it probably bought them a few more explosions elsewhere in the season. All of this ends up amounting to “Vision Quest” not only being one of the more successful episodes of Archer, but a prime example of how and when to pull the trigger on this sort of thing.
