I am not a gamer. I don’t GET the whole extreme adoration of Felicia Day. I like her. I don’t NOT like her, but people LOVE her. I enjoyed her appearances as Charlie on Supernatural and don’t remember her on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I do remember her from Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. I wanted to jump on the bandwagon so I decided to watch The Guild, which was originally a web series created and written by Felicia Day. The first five seasons are available on Hulu and the sixth and last season is available on YouTube. I finished watching The Guild in about four evenings. It is perfect background tv, and if you give it your full attention, it holds up pretty well.
The Guild focuses on Day as Codex, who spends way too much time playing an online fantasy video game then her offline life becomes mixed with her online life when one of the members of her guild meets her. What makes The Guild extremely entertaining is that it has a diverse ensemble of characters that you grow to know and love despite them being extremely socially dysfunctional. My favorite character was the bad mom, Clara. Sorry, Codex!
You can tell when the show started to get popular because more well known stars started appearing, and the show began to be less realistic. The characters began to get more validation from the outside world and perhaps get closer to their real life cool selves, but then The Guild departed from the formula that worked: misfits whose daily drama revolves around the game. The best big name guest was Wil Wheaton, whom I had a huge crush on when he was on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but it was great to see Buck Rogers’ Erin Gray, who had the least realistic storyline, and Maurissa Tancharoen before she started working behind the screen as a writer and producer.
I guess that I like Felicia Day’s mind and The Guild more than I do the persona of Felicia Day. The Guild is hilarious like Parks & Recreations: you’ll care about the characters long after the show is finished.