The
Guild Season Two Webseries Review
After
a successful first season of the award-winning webseries, The
Guild—the screwball-like comedy that follows
a group of World of Warcraft-style online gamers who have difficulty
adjusting to the real world—creator Felicia Day has fashioned
a sophomore effort that both builds upon that initial outing while likewise
expanding the series’ scope and range.
While season
one revolved around fellow gamer Zaboo’s (Sandeep Parikh) stalking
crush on Codex (Day), season two is more fully developed in ways that
better utilizes its ensemble cast, with a centralized theme of men-vs.-women
and honesty/dishonesty in relationships. Codex, for instance, lies to
Zaboo when she explains that the only way he could ever win her love
would be to go out into the world on his own and develop as a human
being. She even uses gaming parallels to illustrate her point: “In
life, you are a starting character…. If we were ever to be together—as
unlikely as that ever, ever would be—you would have to do some
major leveling.”
Tinkerballa
(Amy Okuda), meanwhile, uses Bladezz’s (Vincent Caso) sexual come-ons
as a means to extract both favors and gifts, with no intentions of ever
forging a physical relationship with him. Clara (Robin Thorsen), in
turn, lies to her husband about not attending her sister’s wedding
in order to have a weekend alone in front of the computer (with plenty
of snacks and alcohol on the side).
Between
Zaboo’s continuing obsession with Codex, Tinkerballa’s toying
with Bladezz’s interest in her, and Codex meeting an attractive
stuntman (Fernando Chien) in her new apartment complex, there is also
plenty of fodder for gender interpretations of men, women and relationships.
Guild master Vork (Jeff Lewis) even gets into the act, explaining to
his fellow male gamers at one point that “women, in general, only
yield short-term returns. They are not a suitable vehicle for long-term
investments.”
“Men
are meant to be used for their skill sets,” Tinkerballa later
offers in contrast. “Need to pass a biology test? Date a biologist.
Or your biology T.A. They don’t even need names, as far as I’m
concerned. Fred, Joe and Ryan might as well be called Moving Van, Pharmacist
and Oil Change. You just have to pick the right tool for the right job.”
When the
server that drives the Guild’s game goes down for a few hours,
the differences between men and women is explored even further as the
three males gather at Vork’s house and the three female’s
at Codex’s apartment. The season concludes its ever-building screwball
antics when Clara decides to turn the female gathering into a full-fledged
keg party, which the males eventually crash when Zaboo learns about
the stuntman and Codex.
Each episode
of The Guild opens with a short video blog by Codex which provides
some of the best dialogue and humor, as well as gives Felicia Day ample
room to showcase her comedic skills. With a style reminiscent of the
finest social commentary vloggers on the internet (Brigitte
Dale comes to mind), the quick-cut
facial expressions and speech tones of Day demonstrate her mastery of
the medium.
And Day
has indeed proven herself to be an expert on all-things Internet, especially
the webseries genre. Her writing style is tailor made for the World
Wide Web; each episode follows a short, three-to-eight-minute format
while encompassing enough action in that time span to move the plot
forward while likewise finding cliff-hanging moments to end each episode.
More significantly,
the creator/writer/actress/producer has shown an inept grasp on the
business end of the budding webseries industry. While season one of
The Guild was primarily funded via fan donations, Day was able
to work out a deal with Microsoft that not only paid for season two,
but gave the show greater visibility on Xbox
Live Marketplace, added Sprint as
a sponsor and allowed her to retain creative control as well as the
rights to the series.
“We
had a different model (for season two) because we got so many offers,”
Day explained to Paste
in April, 2009. “Dozens of networking producers and venture capitalists
(offered) to produce the show, but the rebellious inner spirit I have
made me not want to sell the rights to my show.... Then, Xbox and Microsoft
came in and were like, ‘We love the show, we want you to do what
you do with it, we just want to help you produce it and make it and
roll it out really fast.’ They created a revolutionary business
model.”
The
Guild may not have been the first webseries created for the Internet,
but its award-winning season one demonstrated what the medium could
become as much as any other. Season two continues that trend, not only
with refreshing storytelling but as a groundbreaking insurgent against
Old Media as well.
“It’s
sort of the Sundance of our time,” Day said of the Internet in
a December, 2008, interview with IGN.
“This is where people are going to be discovered and be making
new content…. I know that there are a lot of frustrated people
in Hollywood, who aren’t allowed to tell their stories because
they’re either not telling them in the way the studios or networks
want them to, or it’s not appealing to as many people. The cool
thing about the Internet is I can make a show about gamers that would
never get made by traditional means, and I can find an audience for
it. I think that it’s kind of the democratization of media in
a sense.”
Felicia
Day and The Guild stand as true testaments to that democratization.
Anthony
Letizia (September 14, 2009)
