The Guild Season Five Review

In traditional television, there are usually two signs that a long-running series is beginning to run out of gas—appearances by a bevy of guest stars and a change in locale. “Nothing spells the death knell for a show like when it starts ridiculous celebrity cameos,” Television Blend wrote in November 2009 in regards to the former. “The cast getting a little bland?” the site goes on to ask about the later. “Let’s have them tell the same jokes, but this time they are all in Jamaica together. They can be sarcastic/smarmy/ditzy on a beautiful tropical island rather than in their apartment.” Many quality shows have jumped the infamous shark because of such creative ploys, and no doubt many more will in the future.

For the fifth season of the comedy webseries The Guild, creator Felicia Day has incorporated both of these long-standing “kisses of death” into the storyline. While network television sitcoms can air for up to ten years and beyond—Cheers racked up eleven seasons on NBC, for instance, while Seinfeld lasted nine—the webseries medium is still relatively new and untested when it comes to a show’s longevity. While the ploys may initially appear as a means of pumping new blood into the proceedings, however, in the computer screen world of The Guild the narrative devices not only appear fresh and organic but prove that the show can still be as funny and original as the day it first hit the World Wide Web.

At the end of season four, Codex (Felicia Day) created an Internet commercial for the local Cheesy Beards restaurant featuring Bladezz (Vincent Caso) as a pirate spouting such phrases as “Eat My Pirate Paddy.” Despite the low quality of the final product, the video went viral on the Internet nonetheless, making Bladezz a bona fide online star. In season five, meanwhile, the youngest member of the Knights of Good decides to take his new found fame to the next level by attending a Gaming Convention. Under the illusion that it is an all-expense paid trip, Bladezz invites his fellow Guildies along for the ride. Unfortunately, the experience is far from free and the group is forced to share a room together when the hotel turns out to be booked at capacity.

Although Felicia Day is the star of the webseries, The Guild follows in the footsteps of classic television sitcoms like The Office by crafting a small group of supporting characters that are just as entertaining as Codex, making the show a true ensemble piece. Thus rather than have the narrative center exclusively on Codex and her ever-growing anxiety issues, season five of The Guild sends each member of the group on their own individual storylines that ultimately intersect at the end. Clara (Robin Thorsen) and Tinkerballa (Amy Okuda), for instance, initially embark together to sell the overstock from their T-shirt company only to diverge onto separate paths when Clara becomes infatuated with Steampunk culture and Tink discover her adoptive family members are in attendance at the Con.

Zaboo (Sandeep Parikh), meanwhile, develops a “seat-saver network” to ensure attendance at the various panels and forums being held, while Vork (Jeff Lewis) concocts a money-making scheme that takes advantage of Bladezz’s online notoriety. The two also learn a lesson in fame when Bladezz attends a party with the likes of Zachary Levi (Chuck), Tom Lenk (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Eliza Dushku (Dollhouse) in attendance, and Vork meets the female star of a 1990s sci-fi television series called Time Rings (played by Buck Rogers in the 25th Century actress Erin Gray).

While each of the cast has their own storylines and moments to shine during season five, Codex is still the glue that holds The Guild together. When she inadvertently insults the creator of the online world that originally brought the group together, the transgression leads to the potential selling of the game to a conglomerate known for commercializing—and thus ruining—its acquisitions. During season one, Codex remarked, “We can do this, OK? With just a few of us we can take down a ten-man dungeon. Life can’t be that much harder.” At the end of season five, the statement again holds true as the individual narratives converge just in time for the Guildies to unite and save the day.

The number one sitcom on television when The Guild season five debuted online was the CBS series The Big Bang Theory. The story of two brilliant but socially awkward scientists, The Big Bang Theory likewise features a supporting cast that is as vital to its narratives as those on The Guild. The Big Bang Theory is also filled with “geek” references but has found mainstream success nonetheless despite such connotations. The same can be said of The Guild as the plots of each season are easily accessible to those uninitiated in online gaming even though it contains a fair amount of geek-oriented references as well.

By taking The Guild on the road to a convention, meanwhile, Felicia Day inevitably discovered a new narrative device filled with enough laughs to keep casual viewers entertained while simultaneously creating a literal geekfest for the more attuned fan. During the course of the episodes, such iconic celebrities as Nathan Fillion, Neil Gaiman, Richard Hatch, Stan Lee, Brent Spiner and Kevin Sorbo all make brief appearances as themselves in addition to those already mentioned. Season five is also filled with inside jokes about convention culture but the payoffs resonate regardless if one has ever attended such an event or not.

“As Jump the Shark fans know, guest stars can be a sign of strength or weakness,” TV Guide declared in September 2010. Although switching locales and utilizing an overabundance of cameos often mean that a show has indeed “jumped the shark,” in the hands of Felicia Day and The Guild it turns out to be an indication of strength instead.

Anthony Letizia (January 16, 2012)

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