I vaguely recall hearing something about this show sometime back in 2013, but I’m not usually into reality shows and I just totally forgot about it until it popped up on Netflix last week. Now, granted, my enjoyment of the show could have something to do with being stuck at home with a broken foot, but I kind of loved it.

The Quest is ten episodes of pure, slightly silly, feel good entertainment. It’s basically LARPing with occasional competitive games to eliminate contestants (called paladins) to find the One True Hero capable of rescuing the kingdom of Everealm.

The show is reasonably diverse, with the twelve contestants split evenly between men and women, including PoC, and seemingly representative of a fairly wide selection of geeks. I think what I liked best about the paladins, though, is that everyone was so nice. There are a couple of moments where people slip into regular reality show stuff, but overall everyone is just really earnest and positive. Because the show is largely a scripted adventure, even the competitive challenges are in essence cooperative.

The story is pretty predictable, and some of the acting leaves much to be desired, but The Quest is so fun and everyone is so likable that it manages to be such a good time that I didn’t even care. It looks unlikely that the show will get a second season, but if it does, I’ll be tuning in. Or at least waiting til it shows up on Netflix so I can watch the whole thing in one day again.