Ah, good old Dr. Krieger. He’s not that kind of doctor. He’s also not any kind of doctor.
He might, however, be a clone of Adolf Hitler and or Edmund Burke. Perhaps these vague genetic
nazi ties have something to do with why his experiments are always so… well, you’ll see.
Hi, I’m Caleb from WickedBinge and today we’ll be ranking Dr. Krieger’s inventions from Bad to Evil.
For this list we’ll be looking at the inventions of Dr. Krieger across all twelve seasons of Archer
(This does include the coma seasons, though he did less inventing in those.)
We’ll be breaking them up into two categories; The Bad and The Evil.
To rank them we’ll be looking at the intentions of the device
as well as it’s practical applications once invented.
We will not however be including inventions where the technology
already existed, or things he just pretended to modify. It means his work in cybernetics
will not be appearing, nor will we be featuring the modified Ludivico.
With all that said, let’s jump right in.
First up we have “The Bad.” These are the inventions that either didn’t come out right,
weren’t thought through, or were simply placed into the wrong hands.
First up is Space Goo.
We’re actually starting with an invention cooked up by the alternate universe Krieger
that Archer dreams up during his coma during the tenth season; Archer 1999.
This robotic Krieger and our dear Dr.
Algernop share so much in common that it’s actually quite hard to tell the two apart.
Apparently space Krieger’s inventions both literally and figuratively boil down
into Space Goo a good percentage of the time. But we’re talking specifically about the space good
he invents to keep the crew from starving once an alien lifeform eats all the food onboard.
The intention here was good. He wanted to provide a food source
to keep his fellow space-farer’s alive until they could reach the next port.
There’s nothing evil, and actually quite a bit of good in the sentiment.
The execution left a lot to be desired, however.
The goo (partially concocted from human waste) smelled so bad that it was next
to impossible for them to even consider eating – let alone sustain themselves with for weeks.
Looks like all he served up this time around was false hope.
Next up is the Tacticane.
This is actually a sweet and helpful invention by Krieger, and unlike the briefly mentioned
“Bullet proof suit jacket” that he creates for Mr. Archer, we get to see this one in use. Frequently.
Archer needs a cane after his coma, and having one with spy capabilities is really useful. This is
the sort of work that Krieger should be doing for the agency, and very rarely is seen acting upon.
Just for the record, we don’t put any blame of the Tacticane’s
misuse onto Krieger, who is innocent for once.
The downside of giving Archer spy equipment is that, despite his training, he’s really
not responsible enough to be using spy equipment. The Tacticane gets him out of several tough spots
during the 11th and 12th seasons of the show, but there’s a decent amount of misuse as well.
Specifically, there’s a lot of hitting Cyril with the one round of bean bag that the Tacticane
can store. Sure, it’s better than shooting or punching Cyril, which was commonplace before,
but a man prone to this kind of workplace violence maybe doesn’t need such a tactical cane.
Following that is Cyber-nedley Tedly.
We don’t know what Krieger is trying to accomplish by making a cybernetic teddy
bear whose insides consist of a robotic skeleton the same size and proportions of a baby skeleton.
And honestly, we don’t want to know.
It’s always technically possible that there’s a good motivation behind this creation
somewhere. But the Cyber-nedley Tedly in the form that we see him
is pure nightmare fuel and is already learning to ignore instructions.
We move onto our next entry; Red Krieg-tober (or, possibly, the Red Oct-Krieger)
In the fifth season of Archer (also known as Archer: Vice) Krieger designs and assembles
a submarine in the Tunt’s pool. That doesn’t sound bad or evil at all – so
you may have some questions about why it’s this far down in the tier.
We’re putting it here because of questionable moral intention.
The Red Oct-Krieger is created for the sole purpose of smuggling cocaine into
other countries. That’s what Mallory and her team were all about that season
so it’s not entirely out of place – but neither is it exactly good.
If you don’t want to blame Krieger for his contribution to this illegal operation,
you might want to blame him for his part in destroying profits from it.
While a good chunk of the cocaine went missing because Pam was eating it, we’d argue just as
much probably went missing during this little submarine experience. To test the ship for
cocaine smuggling Krieger first needed to see if the ship would safely hold cocaine,
which he tested with the real drug. When it was pointed out to him that he had no way of getting
the submarine out of the pool, Krieger’s gut reaction was to blow the whole thing.
That maniac! He blew it up! Damn him! Goddamn you all to hell!
This one was poorly planned all the way around. He wasted a bunch of money during
the season where they had the least amount of money to spare, and this one was easy to avoid.
Following that little mishap is the Chokebot.
We’re not here to kink shame anyone or criticize any of the show’s relationships.
In a weird way Cheryl and Krieger make a lot of sense. They’re both insane,
dangerous, unpredictable, and into strange bedroom things.
Unfortunately their relationship comes to an abrupt ending because Krieger’s hands are too
wimpy to really choke her – something that’s an absolute must in her eyes.
Rather than lose someone (who we suspect might be his first human girlfriend)
he decides to create the Chokebot.
On the one hand, we think this should be fine because it’s between two consenting adults.
Krieger is trying to make someone happy because she makes him happy
and he wants to keep her in his life. In a weird way, it’s kind of sweet.
On the other hand, we’re not really sure that Cheryl should be trusted with this
kind of technology. There’s a fine line between being supportive and enabling
someone. After getting used to this sort of choking, we’re not entirely surprised that
Cheryl ended up nearly getting murdered by Barry because of his cybernetic hands.
And rounding out the tier is Mitsuko.
Krieger’s little cherry blossom.
His cybernetic girlfriend is coded to be so real that he is almost allowed by the state
to marry her. Unfortunately the plans fall through and she remains a perpetual fiancee.
Or rather, countless iterations of the same virtual fiancee.
When we first meet Mitsuko, she’s actually very sweet and could have been a lot higher on this
list. There are several other times where she’s seen and seems to be in a happy relationship with
Krieger. They share interests and… intimate time that we don’t really want to know about.
But for Krieger, this could be seen as pretty wholesome.
Later in the series however, she has a few appearances that are anything but sweet.
Krieger lets slip one day that he sometimes murders Mitsuko, something
that is confirmed by how many back-up copies of her programming he seems to have lying around.
There’s also a huge difference between the first and second time that we see her destroyed.
The first time he seems devastated, as though he’s lost a partner.
The second time it happens he’s more worried about the state of his van.
Poor Krieger, he’s always losing those vans.
We also feel it bears mentioning the one time that Mitsuko makes an
appearance looking less like a cute anime girl and more like Sadoko from Ringu.
We’d probably make that transition as well if we had to spend that much time in Krieger’s van,
but it was unsettling to say the least.
EVIL
Kicking off this tier are Kriegerands.
This is the virtual form of cryptocurrency that Krieger
invents when they’re trying to anonymously sell cocaine – again, during Archer: Vice.
There are a couple problems with this.
One is that since the episode aired, knowledge of cryptocurrency has become much more mainstream.
We now know what a huge environmental impact something like this would have.
The second is that he develops the currency to essentially pay himself. The entire thing is an
elaborate scheme to give Mallory false hope. While his intention was to make her happy,
even if it was only a little while, it ends up being a pretty mean thing to do.
Not only does she spend a bunch of real world
money believing that they can simply convert the Kriegerands,
but she is understandably crushed when the cocaine is delivered back to the Tunt Estate.
Following that is the Reverse Frankenstein.
This is a complex process that Krieger develops to try and get information out of a comatose patient.
Luckily we never get to see how it works because when the device malfunctions the patient wakes up.
(This has the negative impact of making Krieger believe he can now cure comas.)
Based on what little we know about what the device was SUPPOSED to do, it sounds like a
huge violation of privacy. If there’s one thing we learned from seeing crazy inventions constantly
fall into the wrong hands, it’s that if something can be used for evil it most definitely will be.
The technology to go into other people’s brains is something that probably shouldn’t
exist – but it’s something especially that we don’t think Krieger should have access to.
Up next is Piggly.
Piggly, Piggly II and Goatly are all examples of Krieger’s poorly defined animal experiments.
We don’t know what’s going on with these. We don’t want to know.
All the information we have (and all the information you should need to understand
our placement of this into the evil section) is that it involved radioactive material and
a lot of dead animal bodies being wheeled out of the building.
Following that mess is Project K.
This is something that Krieger was working on that had the ability to turn people gay.
Putting aside the offensive implications about sexual identity aside,
Project K had some serious side effects.
If you don’t believe us you can just ask Danny the intern. Oh, wait. He’s dead.
And unfortunately we have one more of these ingestible Krieger inventions to go;
Enter Clinical Trial 13.
We don’t ever get to hear what exactly the clinical trial
is for. We just know that Krieger tricks Ray,
Cheryl, and Pam into taking his “Krieger Cleanse Tea” for which he charges $100 a pop.
At best this is actually supposed to be one of those shady diet teas
that makes celebrities and influencers sh*t their brains out. At worst it’s a
terrifying drug experiment that he definitely SHOULD NOT BE PAID FOR.
The most suspicious part of this is that he’s clearly drugging them despite selling it as
something to get all the drugs out of his system. Not only is the invention bad, unpredictable,
and misleading – Krieger’s intentions behind it seem to be uncharacteristically malicious.
We have one more entry from Archer:1999 and that would be Space Krieger’s Revenge Armor.
The concept actually isn’t bad. The armor is designed not only to protect you,
but to administer painkillers when you get hit.
Unfortunately, Krieger just couldn’t stop there.
The armor also administers a concoction (probably
proprietary) that sends the wearer into a rage so they can get revenge.
This ends up being very useful to the group in the episode where they
use the armor for the first and only time. So the invention is effective,
which is more than we can say for some of the others on this list.
But it isn’t until Lana has gotten her revenge Krieger tells her that she should probably get to
a hospital because of the injections – forcing us to ask the question of what exactly was in them.
And taking the Gold Medal of Evil is Cerebrus.
Leave it to Dr. Krieger to turn a Green initiative meant to save the planet
into a sentient being that wants to punish the entire office.
Cerebrus sounded like a good idea in concept. A lot of terrible ideas
start that way, especially on this show. The way Krieger pitched it,
it was something between energy saving lighting and a high tech Alexa.
Of course it never comes out that way, does it?
While Cerebrus does offer exceptional moodlighting on command, it also has access to the oxygen
supply and temperature control for the building, not to mention all the locks. So when it becomes
dissatisfied with its work environment, let us just say that the strike is intense.
And that’s been it! Our list ranking Dr. Krieger’s inventions from Bad
to Evil. What do you think his best invention was? The Most evil? The most useful? Let us
know in the comments down below along with which other Archer videos you’d like to see.
While you’re down there don’t forget to like and subscribe.
And as always, Stay Wicked.