Customer Reviews

The Guild - Season One

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The fact that I am able to type a review here at Amazon for The Guild is kind of amazing. Considering this, the first season, was funded by Felicia Day with donations/help from the audience and considering how unlikely such a collaboration is, it's amazing that the show has become such a hit, spawning additional seasons and a more mainstream acceptance. Not that it should be very surprising since it's probably one of the funniest and heartfelt shows I've seen on either the web or TV.

Stepping back a bit, The Guild is a show about...well, an online guild of friends who live in the local area but only know each other through their online alter-egos. Cyd/Codex (Felicia Day) is struggling with what appears to be an addiction to their current MMO, dealing with a psychiatrist who hangs up on her and a gnome warlock who shows up at her front door, thinking they are romantically involved.

What works for The Guild is the fact that the characters are so vivid and played pitch perfectly by the entire cast. Yes, they verge on walking stereotypes, but the hilartiy and the love for these people (some of the kinds of people I know personally) gives the show a much needed heart. What's great is that, while a gaming geek will get the most enjoyment out of the show, I have shown this to friends who think gaming is limited to Rock Band and they, too, kept coming back, week after week, to watch it.

You can go view these shows online, still, either via the website, MSN or Xbox Live. I'm personally glad that there's now another option in this Amazon exclusive. Give it a chance. I bet you'll come back laughing.

The Guild is about people addicted to online gaming. They neglect their own lives, their children, their personal needs, all in service of their avatars, their game personas. Gamers can talk to but cannot see each other, but this guild of six decides to meet in the real world, and thus the central conflict that drives the story.

The Guild was created and written by Felicia Day (a gamer herself) of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. She is also the star of The Guild and her character, Codex, introduces each episode. Felicia is one smart cookie, toting bachelors' degrees in both mathematics and music from the University of Texas, where she entered at sixteen and was valedictorian of her graduating class.

The Guild as a web series is on the leading edge of a wave of the future. As network television increasingly buckles under to reality and game shows, which cost much less to produce, good series are increasingly going under or going to the web. The Guild, in my opinion, is the best series ever. Felicia is simply adorable as Codex. She's witty, insightful, and naive all at once. The other characters are also unique, original, and are like no one you'll ever seen on a major network. It's just simply the most refreshing entertainment I've seen in a long, long time.

Perhaps the most appealing quality of The Guild is how personal it comes across. At the beginning of each episode (which are five to eight minutes in length) Felicia, as Codex, speaks directly to you, the viewer. She explains what has been going on with her since the last episode and foreshadows a little of the action to follow. These short introductions remind me so much of something out of Shakespeare. They are so smart and classy. The editing of these initial monologues is also artistically interesting. Take a look for yourself.

In Buffy, to me, Felicia never really stood out as an actress I would want to follow, and it's rather mystifying how she can be so appealing in The Guild. But she is. Just a part of the girl's magic. Once you've seen an episode or two, you'll be searching her website and blog for more information about her. As I've already said, she's simply adorable.

The Guild is a comedic gem lovingly directed at and about geeks and gamers, but the cast is so great together and Felicia Day (Codex) is so charming and lovely that this show would be hard for anybody NOT to love. Filled with in-jokes and geeky subtext, every episode is an absolute riot to watch over and over again.

I'm serious! Don't get this. Instead, get the new disc that collects all the content of Season One and Season Two. It is cheaper and more convenient. While I dearly love this show, there is not a lot of content. It would be much nicer to have all the content on one disc than having to switch from one disc to another.

THE GUILD is one of the most successful direct-to-Internet series yet produced. It was created and is written by and stars Felecia Day, who starred, along with Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion, in what is by far the most successful Internet-first project ever, DR. HORRIBLE'S SING-ALONG BLOG. The series concerns a group of people who would normally have nothing to do with one another, but have been drawn together by playing World of Warcraft together. For though who have never played WoW (I suppose such individuals exist), one of the things that you can do in WoW is form guilds who quest together. From personal experience I can attest that you end up forming online friendships with people you normally would not spend much time with. If you have played WoW, the show has lots of subtleties that will seem familiar and fun. I've intentionally avoided meeting anyone that I play online with, but these poor souls decide to meet in person. (Though I never join guilds for person reasons. I detest PvP [Player versus Player] and WoW is structured so that if one member of a guild fights a member of another guild, all members of each guild are thereby opposed to one another. Since I could not find a way to be a member of a guild and not PvP, I played solo, which luckily isn't that hard to do in WoW. BTW, I stopped playing WoW after maxing out several characters because of the staggering amount of time that gaming can absorb. Never going to get that book written playing WoW.)

The Guild consists of: Codex (her online name), played by Felecia Day; Zaboo, a Hinjew (half Indian/half Jewish) who stalks Codex; Vork, an early middle-aged loser who lives in his dead grandfather's house (he lives off cashing his granddad's social security checks, and who is also a world-class tightwad and the titular head of the guild); Clara, the mother of three toddlers that she neglects to play online; Tinkerballa, a cute Asian girl who is so obsessed with gaming that she plays Gameboy while also playing WoW; and Bladezz, a long-haired teen who is not the most popular character on the show in Season One. This exceedingly odd collection of individuals unhappily linked with one another provides a host of funny moments that shouldn't be missed.

Felecia Day has pretty much established herself as the hottest female actress on the Internet. Though many knew her from her Season Seven appearance on BUFFY as one of the Potentials, most of her work has been away from either film or television. DR. HORRIBLE made her on online star, a status that was quickly reinforced by the beginning of THE GUILD. She also starred in the great, though unaired episode of DOLLHOUSE "Epitaph One," which many regard as the best episode of DOLLHOUSE. But again, unless you watch it on DVD, you won't see it at all. Most recently she has become even more popular due to a music video based on THE GUILD "going viral." If you haven't seen "Would You Like to Date My Avatar?" do so immediately. Starring Day and the rest of the cast of THE GUILD, with music written by Jed Whedon (the brother of Joss), it is a delightful send up of online socializing. The song is infectious, the performances delightful, and the lyrics witty. And it completes the whole DR. HORRIBLE-"Epitaph One," and music video trilogy. Jed Whedon co-wrote DR. HORRIBLE and "Epitaph One" with his wife Maurissa Tancharoen, and Maurissa is one of the performing dancers in the music video (she is one of the female dancers who back up Tinkerballa). And Felecia Day starred in all three. She is so adorable that I'd love to see her translate her online and DVD success to film and TV. Until then, we have this delightful online series. Do yourself a favor and get not this DVD, but the new one that collects both Season One and Two.

"The Guild" is an independent web series about a group of anti-social gamers who join an online guild in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) similar to "World of Warcraft" and finally meet in real life after only knowing each other virtually. The results range from hysterical to lovable. The series is the brainchild of the luminously charming redhead Felicia Day, who is best known for her recurring role in the final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and more recently for her starring role in the sensational independent Joss Whedon project Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. She writes and produces the show herself and also plays the main character, Codex (the characters all prefer to use their online monikers). Turns out, the girl's not only a spectacular green-eyed beauty and talented actress, but she's also has a great sense of humor and [loving sigh] is a hardcore gamer. Is there a more perfect woman on this Earth? I don't think there is. I'm reviewing the first two seasons at once because I am a lazy, lazy man.

"The Guild" advertises itself as being made "by gamers for gamers", but the fact of the matter is I think anybody with so much as a slight curiosity about geek culture will have a blast with this show. The episodes run short at usually 6-9 minutes which made them perfect for internet viewing. As with any low-budget show the strength is in the characters. Codex is more than adorable in her social awkwardness, overzealous neurotic video blogs, and manic alarmism. Her psychiatrist is considering filing a restraining order. Her love interest Zaboo has taken her online flirtations a bit too seriously and tracks her down in real life to move in with her. If you think that's crazy, wait until mommy shows up. Vork is the middle-aged guildmaster who lives in a house his parents own and is pathologically cheap. I mean cheap as in "takes his own cheese to the restaurant and offers to sell it to his friends wholesale so they don't have to pay the outrageous extra cost for a cheeseburger" cheap. Tinkerballa is the socially disconnected Asian mega-hottie who spends every second she is not online with a Nintendo DS in front of her face. Even when she is on the phone. Now THAT is a gamer. Her complete disregard for other people is amusing at worst. Clara is the overweight housemom who locks her kids in the next room and ignores them while she games for days on end. Maternal instincts not quite what they oughtta be there, but it is hilarious seeing the kids flood in when their father takes down the gate and then rush at their mother in slow-motion, unplugging the computer's ethernet cord as she flies at them saying "NOOOOOO!" in that deep slo-mo voice. Rounding out the primary cast is Bladezz, the slacker who would rather screw everyone else up then take the game seriously. This leads to a predicament early on where the Guild has to vote to kick him out not realizing that he has possession of all of their in-game wealth. These gamer stereotypes are given real heart and are extremely fun to watch.

So far, there have been two seasons of "The Guild"; 21 episodes total not counting the specials. They originally appeared online and can be downloaded on Xbox Live. But for non-gamers or the gigabyte-impaired, the series is now here on DVD. Subplots where the diminutive Codex meets an amazonian first-person shooter (FPS) gamer girl, Zaboo takes on a martial-arts master for her love, Clara secretly launches an in-game assassination campaign on a guildmate, Tinkerballa takes advantage of Bladezz' attraction to her to clean him out, and other hijinks assure that no episode is a dull episode. While there are plenty of gamer references in the show, they are usually low-key enough that the average viewer won't be left out.

In the end, "The Guild" is a satire of interpersonal relationships in the digital age and it's just plain funny. Likable characters and humorously quirky dialogue never go out of style. If nothing else, the show is something different from some very funny people who love what they are doing. This is what all good things in life flow from. Enjoy.

If you're a geek, know a geek, or aspire to be a geek, this is a fantastic series. It's a great ensemble cast, led by Felicia Day, revolving around a video game played online. It's a lot of fun & I love the way Ms. Day took an experience in her life & turned it into such a creative success. To me, the entire endeavor is entrepreneurialism at its best. Ms. Day proves it's entirely possible to create a fantastic piece of work & figure out how to make it work within the new media.

As a former WOW gamer, I really love this show--it puts so much of my wasted time into perspective! Though I've watched the online show, it is wonderful to have "The Guild" in disc form, no more delays due to buffering and I can see it in much larger format. I like the cast interviews and scripts. I wish I had known that new, more enhanced version (with more special features) was going to be released just before I had purchased this one, though, or I would have purchased it instead!

I liked watching this show online for free, but it is so easy to share with friends when on DVD. Plus, all the special features are there! A must for online gamers!

I love this show! Arrived a bit late due to the recent holiday weekend, but other than that, excellent condition and excellent show!

I ordered this after watching some content on the creator's website.... and I am 100% happy I made this purchase. It was hilarious!!! Any MMO player (or nerd) will enjoy this and probobly laugh so hard that the tears come.... (like I did).