Over time I've become an unashamed watcher of The Guild. It's grown from something I kind of found funny on occasion into a very special show that I've been eagerly awaiting the return of.

The trailer is up, warning it does contain mild spoilers for the season:


Yay!

Episode one is available for download on xbox live if you're a gold member, so I'll see you guys later. I've got some TV to watch!
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Starring:
Felicia Day as "Codex"/Sid
Sandeep Parikh as "Zaboo"
Jeff Lewis as "Vork"
Amy Okuda as "Tinkerballa"
Robin Thorsen as "Clara"
Vincent Caso as "Bladezz"

When I previously reviewed the first season of The Guild I was somewhat torn, I enjoyed the show, completely approved of the web-release method and found the dialog hilarious. On the other hand I also found some parts of the show a little inaccessible as it was heavily orientated towards people who play Massively Multiplayer Online Games, I had to Google many of the acronyms and terms used for quite some time and I found the character 'Zaboo' annoying beyond belief, far more annoying than he was intended to be (yes, he is meant to be an annoying character, but you don't want a character so annoying that the viewer wants to switch off instead of hearing what he has to say.

So I had good and bad things to say about the show, but on the whole the good outweighed the bad by a fair margin.

What about the second season? Well, I feel that it's important for the second season of any show to work on it's weak points while still delivering the good stuff in spades. I'm not so bothered about 'raising the stakes' as such, but I do like to see an improvement across the board combined with an interesting story.

The second season of The Guild continues the story between Codex, Zaboo and the other members of the Guild, but has it managed to improve on the points I felt were weak first time? Yes, easily a thousand times yes. For a start the dialog and terminology was far easier to follow and understand this time, I suspect that's in part because I put the effort into learning some of it, but it also felt that the show had 'met me halfway' by toning down some of the geekiest language. Likewise Zaboo was moved a little further away from Codex and given a chance to properly interact with other members, the combination move in with Vork was a stroke of genius, those two characters play off each other exceptionally well. Indeed many of the funniest scenes involve these two interacting, Vork's obvious discomfort with Zaboo's unintentionally homo-erotic dialog and actions was a joy to see.

Bladezz was a little better used in this season as well, in the first season he was mostly used as the "villain" of the piece, his actions forcing the members of the Guild to come together in the first place. But here he was shown in a more normal light, his chasing after Tinkerballa, her manipulation of his affections and his final act in retaliation was a nice b-plot to contrast with the Codex/Zaboo one. But possibly my favourite moment was when he attempted to hustle Vork and Zaboo in poker only to have Vork's incessantly pedantic nature outplay him due to stats and odds.

While I've not written much about her here Clara was also quite brilliant, she hasn't changed too much from the first season, but when you have something which works well you shouldn't change it too much. She remains a self-absorbed, vindictive individual clearly in the throes of arrested development, her 'griefing' of Vork for his in game decision was exceptionally funny, as was her 'woo-girl' reversion when organising a small girl's night (which she degenerated into a full blown party).

From a technical standpoint as well the show has improved, not just the inclusion of Fernando Chien as Wade (who brought some awesome asskickery to the show) and not just in the technical editing and camera work. But also in the distribution, putting the show onto XBox Live for download was a fantastic move and I applaud it with great gusto.

In short the second season of the Guild improved on everything right across the board, it moved a little away from it's MMO roots and as such it managed to broaden all of it's characters while additionally making the show more accessible and a lot funnier to boot. I always thoroughly approve of web-based shows, I feel they are showing us the future of media and the potential involved in online projects. Felicia Day and the entire crew involved in the show are to be congratulated on an excellent show in new media. I'm confident that the third season will be even better than the second one was.

Watch the Guild: It's not just for gamers.
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The Week That Was returns to it's usual spot at 'Sometime on a Saturday'.

This week is pretty sparse, shows are just starting to return to normality after the Christmas break, so it's going to be pretty light this week.

Scrubs:
There were two episodes of Scrubs this week and it's clear that in both of them that the dedicated decision to scale back the wacky and return to the tone of the first few seasons has been followed. The first episode introduced Courtney Cox as Kelso's replacement and a whole batch of new interns. Cox is very good, but the new interns are all best described as the Rude One, the Annoying One, the Brown Noser and The Rest. I'm not fussed on them.

The second episode guest starred The Wire's Glynn Turman as George (at least I think that was his name) a dying man who's kept company by JD and Turk. It was the better of the two episodes, both for the comedy moments and the more thoughtful ones. Glynn gave the entire thing a real sense of gravitas and dignity, it's been a while since the show has had such a strong actor playing a one-off patient. I have a good feeling about this season of Scrubs, but I do hope it's the last one if Zach is leaving.

My Name is Earl:
Sometimes I find myself wondering why I keep watching 'My Name is Earl' and for some of the latest episode this was one of those times. I guess I'm not the worlds biggest fan of forumlaic shows and My Name is Earl is pretty much the pinnacle of forumlaic alongside House M.D. and CSI. But then I got swept up in the story of Earl's attempt to get a young lad he was responsable for causing the pregnancy of (there must be a better way to write that) to fly straight and grow up. It was fun and the B story of Mr Turtle being lost was entertaining as well.

I just wish that Earl would resist going back to the start every single episode, this is a show that's meant to be about someone growing and making amends for what they've done, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere and the characters don't grow much either. Maybe I'm just expecting too much from this, I've already seen three and a half seasons so I shouldn't be surprised anymore...

30 Rock:
Also returning this week is the businesses favourite comedy 30 Rock. Salma Hayek joins the cast as Eliza, a nurse Jack has hired to look after his mother. Liz on the other hand meets a UN Member (name forgotten and not present on the imdb) played by Peter Dinklage when she mistakes him for a little boy. The show is filled with some excellent comedy, overall a little weak plotwise but there were so many funny moments I didn't really care. 30 Rock continues to be a little up and down with it's quality, but when it's on it's so good that it more than makes up for the lulls.

The Guild:
Rounding up this comedy edition of TWTW is the Web based show 'The Guild', I've written a little about it in the past and I've enjoyed it enough that I wanted to find a way to support it each week. As each episode is just less than ten minutes in length it's hard to write a full review on each episode. So I'm just going to give it a slot in TWTW each week instead.

We're up to episode six at this point and I have to say this second season is a lot sharper and funnier than the first season. Paring up Vork and Zaboo together has been nothing but comedy gold, Zaboo is inappropriately homo-erotic towards Vork constantly and the dysfunction between them constantly has me laughing. Add to this Clara's repeated griefing of Vork, her sleep deprived delusions and the awkward attempts by Codex to get to know her stunt man/martial artist/all round awesome neighbour after she puked on him and it's amazing to think these episodes are so short. They're packed with as much action as an episode of Treehouse of Horror or Harvey Birdman.

You can watch the full episodes for free on msn or via Xbox Live.

Other News:
In other news my copy of BSG Season 2 arrived damaged, I thought about complaining but it turned out I would have to return the product and then wait for a new one, costing me both time and money. I decided to use an iron, glue and good old skill to repair it instead. You'd never know it was broken now.

I also purchased season four of Battlestar Galactica as well because I honestly haven't watched Razor or the fourth season yet -- That's for next week. Amusingly this means that part of my collection looks like this now:


Yes, that's right. I don't own the third season, I just have a gap instead. (I'm also missing the final season of The A-Team still, I keep meaning to get it and then putting it off.) For the curious who don't recognise everything up there on sight, if you click the picture there's an 800 x 600 version. (For the doubly curious, the dragon doesn't have a name, but I like to celebrate my nationality! Call him Welshie after the Futurama character.)

I'm also waiting on deliveries of RescuMe's second season and the first two series of Wire in the Blood. I'll probably write about them at some point. RescuMe in particular has really grown me, despite the fact that I can't write it's name correctly and have given up trying.
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A while back I posted a short ish review of 'The Guild' a web published show that was about a group of people who were all members of an online guild. I sort of enjoyed it despite not having a frame of reference for many of the jokes due to their MMO nature.

Well the second season has started airing and it's available to watch either on XBOX Live (woo!) or here on MSN Video.

Here's a direct link to the first episode. Enjoy!
Direct Link

Direct Link to the site:
http://www.watchtheguild.com/

Starring:
Felicia Day as "Codex"
Sandeep Parikh as "Zaboo"
Jeff Lewis as "Vork"
Amy Okuda as "Tinkerballa"
Robin Thorsen as "Clara"
Vincent Caso as "Bladezz"

The Guild is a collection of that short web-isodes that have been out for a while and focus on a small group of dysfunctional individuals who draw their entire social support system from each other, via the medium of an online guild in an undisclosed game (but most likely World of Warcraft).

Now this show is about a subject that I have a rather; intense dislike of. I really don't approve of MMOs as a whole, especially the latest batch headed up by World of Warcraft. Originally I wasn't that bothered about them, but having lived with people who became complete WoW-Heads and as such totally obnoxious losers who lived strange hours, smelt bad and talked in complete net-speak gibberish I'm not too well disposed towards them any more.

Note: I'm sure there are well balanced individuals who treat MMOs as occasional bursts of enjoyment out there. But I can't understand how people can spend hours sat in front of what is essentially a very bad movie without getting bored. Still people are free to spend their lives as they wish and it doesn't harm me so enjoy!

Felicia Day (who recently shot to fame as Penny in Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog and previously appeared on shows like Buffy) stars in and writes this off beat comedy about a young lass who's entire life is currently lived on the Internet as part of a tiny group of fellow addicts loosely called 'The Guild'. Her life is disrupted when 'Zaboo' turns up uninvited on her doorstep and starts proclaiming his undying love for her. This, combined with an "in-game" issue with Bladezz spamming 'fag' galvanizes her into arranging a face to face meeting with the other members of the guild. Who all live locally but have never met before...


It's not a bad little diversion to watch in an evening, each episode is approximately five minutes long and it's quite funny at times. Felicia is very likable and amusing as Codex and performances from the rest of the cast are equally strong, Jeff Lewis (Vork) and Vincent Caso (Bladezz) in particular are great, but I also enjoyed Amy Okuda's disinterested put-downs thrown at various times. You're left wondering why on earth she bothers with them because she seems to do nothing but insult the others and play on her DS. Which I found very amusing.

But it's not all perfection, parts of the dialog I found just too dorky for my stomach to handle, especially the stuff in the final episode which had me cringing when the guild members use in game terms while confronting Zaboo's mother in a restaurant - treating the whole thing like a "boss battle". I'm sure MMO users will find that part very funny, but I didn't like it.

Additionally, I just could not stand Zaboo from the very first moment he turned up; this was intentional as he's an unwelcome guest in Codex's house and she's too passive to properly drive him out. But I found myself getting irritated at him every time he opened his mouth. This isn't to say everything that he does is annoying and unfunny. The photo shopped picture of himself and Codex was amusing and the Ethernet cable incident made me laugh. But on the whole he was the weakest part of the series and for me this was a shame because most of the story revolves around him. Also, and I know this is entirely superficial, but I hate his eyebrows - man they are annoying.

Last of all, I could not stand the 'theme music' they've chosen to use; please - if you ever read this guys - switch it up next season and use something that sounds less like fairies taking a whizz on bells. I found myself skipping past it every single episode and it's only a few seconds long.

Still, negative feelings about Zaboo and the extreme, cringe worthy level of dorkiness (both of which are in the same area of comedy as "The Office" and "Fawlty Towers" so they're still quite acceptable) it's a great little series that should appeal to computer people (ooh you computer people with your computer stuff and your computer lingo, you scare me!). I guess I'm not part of the target demographic but I still enjoyed it once I gave it a chance.

I'll give it a 3/5 (which is pretty good for an independent, free, net web-isode thing) and I look forward to the next 'season'.


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