Fanfic just got a whole lot more respectable, if somehow a bit nerdier. Blake Ross, founder of Firefox, wrote his own spec script for the third-season premiere of Silicon Valley. As Ross writes on his Facebook page:
I couldn’t wait 8 more months for season 3 of Silicon Valley to start, so I spent the past 48 hours writing my own episode. It picks up where season 2 left off.
This is my first television script ever, which means it’s probably the roughest draft I’ve ever shared. I plan to do this a thousand more times until I figure out the medium. Until then, I’m taking a page from all those tech companies who wait ’til the Friday night of an Apple launch to quietly announce that they’re replacing their privacy policy with a Snickers wrapper:
I’m shipping while you’re all at Burning Man.
It’s a bold move to put himself out there like that, but luckily Ross is more than capable of rising to the challenge. The episode involves Richard interviewing CEO candidates while the rest of the gang investigates going the open source route. The entire script is posted online, and reads very much like a normal episode of the HBO program. Here’s a passage to give a taste of how Ross captures the spirit of the sitcom:
While it may be Ross’ first script, he does an excellent job of nailing the voices of all the characters while providing keen insight into the tech world that he surely has accumulated throughout the years. Read the entire 31-page script here and then wait another eight months before Silicon Valley returns.