Watch "The Guild" (No, seriously, why are you still here? Go)

[Yair]

Season six of the guild starts today. If you haven't been watching it, I have been informed that your LAVA membership will be revoked.

You can get the chance to fix that by watching the the past seasons where all the episodes of each season are shown as a single movie.

Here's the first season:

Warning: the captions go about as fast as Codex. If you haven't seen this before, you probably want to turn them off, or you wouldn't be able to follow the video.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Yair

[JackDunaway]

Can you give a teaser on why it's so good? (I've not seen you give such a strong endorsement since Arrested Development!) Kinda looks like... The League meets Big Bang Theory

[ShaunR]

Spam?

[hooovahh]

Can you give a teaser on why it's so good? (I've not seen you give such a strong endorsement since Arrested Development!) Kinda looks like... The League meets Big Bang Theory

It seems very "meh" for me. I tried watching it when it was first featured on Xbox Live. I didn't make it through the first season. Not because I hated it, it just isn't for me. I see now that it's on Netflix with a few more seasons so I feel like I should give it another try.

[asbo]

Big mistake: started watching this at work...

[JackDunaway]

I mean, if I can watch a season in 43min... will give it a shot. (Personally, can hardly wait for AHS to come out again in a couple weeks, so I'm leery about introducing anything new that might upset the show lineup...)

[Yair]

Can you give a teaser on why it's so good?

Well, looks like you're willing to check it out already, so no reason for that, but for those who do need a reason - it's funny. Just check it out.

Spam?

No, that's Monty Python. Come on!*

I didn't make it through the first season.

Well, be aware that the first season was made by inexperienced producers with such a low budget that it had to be shot in two separate blocks. But the humor and style are basically the same.

* No, that's Arrested Development. I fear I may be going into a cycle here.

[hooovahh]

Well, be aware that the first season was made by inexperienced producers with such a low budget that it had to be shot in two separate blocks.

I also gave up on Mad Men because it seemed slow the first few episodes. I'm glad I stuck with Breaking Bad past the first few episodes. I understand shows don't always work well for some reason or another early on, and may get better over time, but I just can't invest 12 hours in a first season of a show if I'm just going to not enjoy it after the first season. Maybe the Brits have a better formula with only 6 episodes a season, but then you have the other problem of only 6 episodes a year of some awesome show. The Guild is 45 minutes for a season, so I don't have much of an excuse.

[JackDunaway]

Season six of the guild starts today. If you haven't been watching it, I have been informed that your LAVA membership will be revoked.

OK, my LAVA membership revocation is no longer a threat... it was *borderline* painful to watch, but had some particularly clever humor/writing. And a comparison to The League (or Sunny) is not bad with the dark humor between the gang, not to mention Zaboo is about as unsavory as Rafi. Considering watching season 2 against my better judgment

[Yair]

Well, I think it's mainly a matter of taste. I remember trying The League (and AHS) and not liking it and I had to start The Big Bang Theory three times because each time I stopped after a few episodes and even then I stopped again after a while. Personally, I was never that kind of involved gamer (and MMO's are not my thing), so for me it's mainly the writing and the details (like the "5 6 7 8 9 hours a day" limit post-it which you see about a minute into the first episode).

Keep in mind also that this was designed for the web. An episode is generally less than 10 minutes and they can be very condensed, so taking too much in at once can be hard (or borderline painful, as you found out).

Edited October 6, 2012 by Yair

[Yair]

Oh, goodie. Our spammers are becoming more sophisticated. Sigh...

 

To at least be on topic, I can say that while the sixth season did show an impressive rise in production quality (and a cool new opening sequence), I didn't like it as much as the previous ones. Luckily, it also ended the story quite well and there are no plans currently for more seasons, so it won't go down in quality any more.

[shoneill]

I'm currently slogging through both season 6 of mad men (with the wife) and season 3 of Boardwalk empire.

 

It took me a while to get "into" boardwalk empire but once you get to know the characters just a little it became quite compelling to me.  A lot of good actors in there and fantastic production quality.

[crelf]

"The Big Bang Theory" is the worst show currently on television. No wait, that's "Glee". Ok, "The Big Bang Theory" is the *second* worst show currently on television.

[Roderic]

"The Big Bang Theory" is the worst show currently on television. No wait, that's "Glee". Ok, "The Big Bang Theory" is the *second* worst show currently on television.

I disagree, I like this show (The Big Bang Theory). Maybe you're not the "target" for this show... Anyway it would be really hard to find out which TV show is the worst considering the large amount of "bad" TV shows

[crelf]

Maybe you're not the "target" for this show...

 

Oh, I'm certainly not the target - my undergraduate was in physics,

[Roderic]

I have a MSc in Physics but enjoy the show.     Many engineer love that show (the younger ones maybe...)

[hooovahh]

"The Big Bang Theory" is the worst show currently on television. No wait, that's "Glee". Ok, "The Big Bang Theory" is the *second* worst show currently on television.

It's low brow when compared to the sophisticated British humor.  (I meant to link to the Simpsons episode that made fun of Benny Hill but I can't find it)

[Daklu]

All this talk of television shows and not a single mention of House of Cards?  Unacceptable!  (I keep thinking I ought to try the British version.)

 

I'm finding I'll be interested in a televised drama for a while then get bored--mostly because nothing substantial is happening.  Revenge started out good but partway through the first season I realized the story wasn't going anywhere.  Arrow has a back story I find a little bit interesting, but again there's no progression.  I really enjoyed Weeds for a while--until it became too dark and I wearied of watching Nancy's self-destructive behavior.  Tried both Mad Men and Breaking Bad.  Neither struck a chord with me. 

 

I'm a little more forgiving of sitcoms.  I enjoyed the early seasons of Big Bang, though I've never particularly liked Penny.  Been watching 30 Rock, and that's okay.  By far the best sitcom I've seen in the last 2 decades is Scrubs.  (And Zach Braff nailed an awesome photobomb the other day.)

 

There aren't that many "good" web series.  I mostly enjoyed The Guild, probably because I was way into World of Warcraft for a while and could relate to the situations.  But it pales in comparison to the best web show I've seen:  Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog.  If you're willing to include Machinma in the web series category, Arby 'n' the Chief was pretty funny.  (If you're not familiar with it, start from the

.  BTW, it's not safe for work.)

[Yair]

I mostly enjoyed The Guild, probably because I was way into World of Warcraft for a while and could relate to the situations.  But it pales in comparison to the best web show I've seen:  Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog.

 

Well, Felicia Day was in both (Penny in *most of* Dr. Horrible, Codex and writer/producer/everything in The Guild), but I liked it not just because it was funny, but also because it presented an alternative model for making quality video content (and Dr. Horrible and Sanctuary also fall into that category, although I didn't really like Sanctuary). I watched most of the first episode of Arby 'n' the Chief and didn't really find it funny (with the notable exception of the million dollars and infinity girlfriends joke), either because I haven't played a single second of Halo in my life or because I've never really been into multiplayer games (the only period in which I did play multiplayer Counter Strike was when I had access to a few networked computers all in the same room and some relevant friends) or because I tend to write more like Arby than the Chief.

 

 

Incidentally, if there is any one show that I would recommend that every engineer should watch, it would be Mr. Bean, not because it's ridiculously funny (it is), nor because it's one of the very rare cases where I find physical and slapstick humor to be funny (it works because of its suitability to the character and the talent of Rowan Atkinson), but because it's an excellent lesson in problem solving. Mr. Bean is an absolute buffoon, but he's also a genius in finding original and clever ways to solve problems (which admittedly shouldn't have been there in the first place).