Series on Youtube You Should Be Watching*

One of my favorite pics from SDCC 2013, even though I look weird and giant and like I haven't slept in days (accurate). The perfect lead-in for a post on awesome web series!

Hi guys! What? You say I haven't blogged in eight months and you have completely forgotten about me? Well, that sucks. I am not a fan of entries that start off with all the reasons the blogger has not blogged, so let's skip right to the content.

When I say that I'm not a youtube person or an internet meme person, you should take that to heart. Whenever someone asks "have you seen __________ on youtube?" my answer is almost always "um ... no." I didn't watch Gangnam Style until it already had well over a million (or maybe two million or three) views, but thank god I did, because the DJ at my BFF's wedding played the song twice and I would have felt so lame not knowing the dance.

I also tend to ignore videos when people blog or share them. I can spend many hours playing Warcraft III or marathoning Supernatural, but your three-minute youtube video is so not worth my precious time. This makes no sense, of course, but my brain is weird. Anyway, if you're like me, I hope that you give at least one of these series a chance anyway.

Here are several series that I absolutely love and watch regularly! Frankly, I'm glad I'm late to the game on these, because that means more episodes for me!

First off, there is the Geek & Sundry channel, brainchild of the Internet Geek Goddess, Felicia Day. I honestly do not know how this girl has time to do all the things she does. She reads extensively, as well as plays multiple immersive video games, and still has time to act and run her own youtube network? She really is some sort of magic-user.

My favorite series on this channel so far are Tabletop and Co-Optitude/The Flog. Tabletop is the creation of Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day, and features Wil hosting various geek icons playing tabletop games. At first, this might sound strange, but it is so engrossing. As a result, Mike and I have acquired several new tabletop games and multiple mobile app versions of these games. It is incredibly entertaining, but also provides a great introduction to new games. I want to have a Settlers of Catan game night, and I plan to show that particular episode to newbies to help explain the rules.

To introduce you to Tabletop, here is one my favorite episodes, mostly because of the interplay between some of my favorite actresses and Wil.



Next up, we have The Flog, which is Felicia's vlog. This show also spun off Co-Optitude, which I will talk about below. The Flog is basically Felicia's personal show, in which she does all sorts of things like cooking segments, girly crafts (she drags Colin Ferguson to go crocheting), recommends games, and tries things way outside her comfort zone. To illustrate this last point, here is the episode when she tries parkour.



I just have to say that Luci must be really tiny, because I've stood by Felicia,** and I've never felt so giant, except maybe when I met Sandeep Parikh.***

Felicia had a regular segment on her show where she played old console games with her brother, Ryon, for the first time. And, they sort of suck at them, given that they never played them as kids. This spun off into the show Co-Optitude. It reminds me of playing video games with my brother. That's probably why it appeals to me so much, I can totally relate. A lot of people get annoyed with Felicia and Ryon for criticizing their childhood favorites, and I have to admit that the episode where they played Sonic really got to me. They did not really understand how awesome this game is, or how to play it, and totally need to give it another shot.

I still love the show, though, and here is an episode where they played Goof Troop, and it's one of my favorites. Who else totally watched that cartoon? Anyone?



Also, it goes without saying, that if you're not watching The Guild, you should be. This hilarious webseries, which rocketed Felicia Day into geek stardom, is appealing even if you do not play MMORPGs (or even know what that is), trust me.



Note: if you watch this on an ipad, the annotations will not show up. You can also watch these individually on the Geek & Sundry channel without annotations.

Moving on from Geek & Sundry, I have two final series that are actually some of the best TV I have seen in a while. Not just internet TV, but TV as a whole. The first is the series Husbands, a collaboration between one of my favorite TV writers of all time, Jane Espenson, and Brad Bell, who stars as Cheeks. It is a series about a high-profile gay couple who get married in Vegas and who decide to stay married as they do not want to be famous for "the first gay divorce". The series features tons of cameos, including Nathan Fillion as a newscaster and a recurring character played by Joss Whedon. I found out about this series at Comic-Con from Jane Espenson**** herself, and was a bit ashamed that I had not watched it before, since I love her work so much.




And last, we have my absolute favorite, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. I am a sucker for anything Pride and Prejudice-related, but this may be my favorite adaptation. Truly. It is a re-imagining of the story as Lizzie's vlog and it is amazingly wonderful. Go watch it!


Go forth and enjoy these series, and let me know if you do!

*A post in which I shamelessly namedrop like I'm actually somebody. I'm so lame.

**Oh god, the name-dropping

***There it is again. Just for clarification, he totally talked to me. Like, came up to me on the street. True story.
****Last time, I promise.