‘Archer: 1999’ – Lucky Yates Interview on Krieger in Space

FXX’s critically acclaimed adult animated series Archer returns for season 10 on May 29, 2019 at 10pm ET/PT. This season finds the collection of oddball characters heading into space for Archer: 1999, a season that finds the group encountering aliens, space pirates, and outer space entities.

FXX brought the voice cast of Archer to the 2019 WonderCon in Anaheim to discuss the upcoming season. Sitting down for roundtable interviews, Lucky Yates shed some light on what’s in store for Archer: 1999 and how it feels to be part of a show that constantly reinvents itself.

What’s the new wrinkle for Krieger going to be this year?

Lucky Yates: “I’m Krieger again, there’s one wrinkle. I’m no longer a bird. Well, we’re not human – we’re a synthetic human this time. Now he’s a robot as opposed to a clone. Like in the Aliens franchise he’s a synthetic human with milk blood. So, he’s a robot and he catches a lot of hell for it since he’s the only one on board.”


Does this robot Krieger like it in space since he’s built for it?

Lucky Yates: “Yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot of sort of like Spock where there’s just sort of a cold logic side to him, except they pick on him a lot. He has emotions unlike Spock, I guess. Krieger gets sad. But yeah, he digs space.”

Krieger’s had a lot of interesting transformations over the years.

Lucky Yates: “Yeah, big changes.”

Archer: 1999 Lucky Yates
Algernop Krieger (voice of Lucky Yates) in ‘Archer: 1999’ (Photo Credit: FXX)

Are there any that have stuck out over the seasons?

Lucky Yates: “Other than Crackers? Because Crackers above all, I love Crackers. I feel so bad saying it but, man, I love that bird! But my previous one was I love the San Marcos season – whatever season that is when we go to San Marcos, the one where we’re drug dealers – because he runs into the other clones. It opens up the world of Krieger and asks so many questions, like, ‘Man, how many of these guys are running around? Who is Krieger Prime?’

There’s got to be one at the top somewhere. I don’t think it’s our Krieger. We still haven’t answered which Krieger we have.”

Are we moving closer to that revelation in this season?

Lucky Yates: “In this season? No, because we’re in outer space and I’m a robot. But who knows? Who knows what will happen in the future. Not this guy.”

Has it been a challenge to reinvent the show every year?

Lucky Yates: “For us it’s a blast because it’s the same characters but we get to do completely different things every year and put different little spins on everything. I know the fans are freaking out about it every time we do one of these. Well, some of them… Some of the grumpier ones. I Shouldn’t say the fans because our fans are amazing. But some of your grumpier types get really bent out of shape as though this cartoon – these people – are real. You know what I mean? It’s like, ‘Just relax and enjoy the ride, guys.’

So, to sort of reinvent every year is amazing. It’s so much fun. I think the show could go on forever if we just kept doing that. Because at the core it’s about how these characters deal with one another. It’s a sort of dysfunctional family in the middle of something that, you know, they’re going to bicker their way through and hopefully succeed.”

Is it hard to work yourself up to those loud yelling moments?

Lucky Yates: “Oh god, no. I’m very loud as just a human being so it’s tougher to sort of tone things down for me. They’re just like, ‘Hey, don’t be so loud in this one.’”

Is there a particular sci-fi film that you loved seeing parodied in this season?

Lucky Yates: “Personally, I’ve only seen…I’ve seen the first episode, so I don’t know from this point on how things look. But sort of the look of the show we really are paying a lot of homage to the Aliens franchise, and it’s one of my favorite franchises because it’s sci-fi/horror which are two of my biggest happy places. So, I love that.

It’s the clunky sort of ‘70s version of what the future will be – clackety keyboards and weird things that don’t really make (sense). We’ve far surpassed a lot of the tech that’s on the ship already. So, getting back to that sort of, ‘This is what people thought the future would be,’ is a lot of fun.”