YouTube is a myriad of things to watch, from cats playing the piano to the philosophical argument of what sound a fox makes. However, scripted web series have been making a lot of waves in recent years. Figuring out what’s worth watching in the crazy smorgasbord of YouTube can be tough, though. So here the scripted series worth watching on YouTube.
1. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Guys, it won an Emmy for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media. A YouTube web series without any famous names won one of the highest honors in television. Needless to say, this retelling of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” has caused a lot of waves all over the internet.
Lizzie Bennet is now a twenty-first century communications student who created a vlog as part of her thesis project. Through the vlog, she tells us about her life. Lizzie reenacts scenes from her life with her sisters and friends, telling viewers about her crazy mother and her obnoxious new neighbor, William Darcy. It’s smart, funny and heartwarming.
2. WIGS This is technically not an individual series but an entire channel of fantastic scripted web series, to the point where I can’t just pick out one. Sometimes you can tell when a channel has a lot of money. When a channel has names like Jennifer Garner, America Ferrera and Anna Paquin, you know someone is definitely funneling a lot of money into this. This leads to professional quality, though.
The channel creates dramatic roles for women, but make no mistake, this isn’t Lifetime channel melodrama. They create really well-rounded female characters and have great actresses telling their stories. WIGS releases series, short films and documentaries on a huge variety of topics (Troian Bellisario stars in a series about a female soldier in “Lauren” while America Ferrera deals with being a compulsive liar in “Christine.”). In the world of web series, comedy seems to be the major genre, so WIGS dramas are a nice change.
3. “Burning Love.” This parodies shows like “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette.” We have a group shoved into a house together and competing for one person’s affections.
They take archetypes of typical reality show contestants and play with them. There is the woman who realizes she is a lesbian, a devout Christian, a sex maniac and even a homeless woman competing for the affections of one man in the first season. The third season moves past love and throws money into the game: the contestants enter a cut throat competition to win a whopping $900.
The series is hilarious, which isn’t surprising when you realize it comes from Ben Stiller’s production company, Red Hour Digital. The series has also gotten its fair share of big names, like Kristen Bell, Adam Scott and Jennifer Aniston.
4. “The Guild.” This webseries is currently in its sixth year, and is considered by many to be the pioneer of the webseries. Created by “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Supernatural” vet Felicia Day, the series follows a group of gamers who realize they live close enough to actually meet. The only problem is that they’re a group who spends most of their days inside, by themselves, only interacting through this game. The group figures out how to deal with social situations like parties and dating while still making time to play their World of Warcraft-like game.
The show has basically made Felicia Day the reigning queen of internet nerds. Her series also helped influence “Avengers” director Joss Whedon to create the web-series “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog.”
These series are all great choices for web series. The short length of episodes makes them the perfect option for entertainment between classes.
PHOTO TAKEN from lizziebennet.com
