I’d been hearing about The Guild a lot since Dr. Horrible, and never bothered to check it out — because I thoroughly disliked Horrible, and wasn’t quite entranced by the actress. Ah, and because online amateur comedy videos always suck.

Well, this one doesn’t. The writing isn’t stellar, but there are some truly funny moments in most episodes — and generally they’re sold entirely by writer and lead performer Felicia Day, who is completely, subtly credible as the awkward geek girl who spends her entire life playing an MMORPG. It helps that she’s an actual WoW addict with real geek cred (as I found out in the podcast interview that finally made me watch the episodes); it doesn’t help that the rest of the cast are very obviously non-actors — what’s missing most, actually, is a good director, who’d be able to coax more passable acting from them.

Still, like I said, it has funny moments (which is a lot more than you can say about most of those things), and it’s short and free. Just don’t start with the last episode, because it’s the worst. And the story is completely sequential anyway.