By Ned Jordan
The Knights of Good are besieged with problems in The Guild: Season 3, and
they couldn't come at a worse possible time. A new expansion has launched for
their MMORPG of choice, but a litany of personal and group issues that can all
be traced back to their ill-fated decision to meet in person in Season 1 has
left them one member short and thus unable to explore all of the expansion's new
content. Making matters worse, they have a run-in with another guild at the game
store when picking up their copies of the expansion and it leads to a vendetta
against them which fragments The Knights of Good to the point of disbanding. Can
Codex (Felicia Day) keep The Knights of Good together in spite of her lack of
confidence and a chronic need to avoid confrontation? What can she do about the
aggressive and spiteful rival guild, The Axis of Anarchy? And will she ever get
to play the new expansion?
At twelve episodes Season 3 has a little more time to develop a more complete
storyline and develop its characters more than the prior two seasons, and it
takes advantage of that time to become a bit more than a loosely connected
series of shorts directed primarily at the MMORPG crowd. The season is still
fragmented into episodes that run under ten minutes each, which is just enough
time to resolve the prior episode's cliffhanger and set up a new one. The
disjoint nature is inherent to web-based series such as The Guild, and while it
may seem a little strange for a DVD the show is still enjoyable in this format.
It's great to see the series come into its own, and after Season 3 you'll be
genuinely interested as to where The Knights of Good will go from here.
Since The Guild is a web-based series, you could simply watch the Season 3
episodes online for free. Having them on DVD saves you some effort, though, and
alleviates any pauses and hiccups you may experience with online connection
issues. The first collection of The Guild episodes on DVD didn't offer up much
beyond the episodes themselves which made it a dubious purchase for anyone but
the biggest The Guild fans. Season 3 corrects this issue with the inclusion of a
second disc of special features. The special features include the Do You Want
to Date My Avatar? music video and a special Halloween episode of The Guild.
Both are enjoyable, but, again, probably easy enough to find on the internet.
Additional bonus content includes a look at the making of the music video, a
step-by-step guide to creating a mock-up of Vork's sword for your very own, and
a rogue's gallery of rejected guild applicants. Rounding out the special
features are your usual fare of audio commentaries and gag reels.
I like The Guild and it manages to keep things going nicely in Season Three
even though it burned through just about all of the standard MMORPG jokes it
could make in Season One. It's still definitely for the MMORPG playing crowd, as
most of the humor will be lost on newbs. You can find episodes online or on Xbox
Live, so certainly go check it out. If you want to enjoy it offline and have
something to hold in your hands, this two DVD set will fit the bill quite
nicely.
Final Rating:
