The Guild – Official Poster – from IMDB.com

The Guild (2007)

Creator: Felicia Day
Stars: Sandeep Parikh, Felicia Day and Jeff Lewis
Website: http://watchtheguild.com/

Web series are a powerful medium that have been growing in popularity over the last few years. With the power of Youtube and advertisement support to gain income from them, they are also becoming a viable way of producing a show. It gives you a wider audience with the blessing of not having to deal with networks and the fight for airtime on television. There have been some really successful web series, such as Dr Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog, and from what I’ve seen most are directed towards those who love the internet and the medium of both blogging and online videos.

The Guild is the brain child of the gorgeous geek and actress Felicia Day. The series is based on a group of gamers who play a role-playing game called “The Game” online. They form a small group of individuals who work together in the game, or a guild. It is the story of how they meet and become IRL friends. For the main character, Codex (Felicia Day), the game is her main social interaction and has become the centre of her world, so much so that she sought a therapist for her addiction and then her therapist dumped her because she wasn’t willing to cut down on how much she played the game.

The show is quirky and reveals the good and bad of online games, especially those that demand hours of play time. However it is done in such a stereotypical way that both judges the gamer and their critics. It is this element that I love about the show. It is a hilarious look at online gamers and their world and is clever and entertaining.

The form of web series means it is light hearted entertainment but it also means that the attachment to the characters can be developed every week through the series. You really get to know the different characters in the guild and you discover what each of them brings to the group in their own special way. I love this form of story telling because it creates it’s own reality. It is a true situation comedy, these could be real people sharing their vlogs on Youtube. That is the wonderful thing about it.

Felicia Day is a fantastic comedic actor and really brings her own unique and inspired look into online gaming into this show. The genuine nature and honesty of it reveals a deep love for the gaming world as well as a wonderful sense of humour about the diversity of the people who play. I love all the characters, even Clara, and I really can’t wait until the next season starts airing online.