The Revenge Script and David Foster Wallace

I don't have any TV reviews or football posts for today. However, with the fall season quickly approaching, I have some links to pass along to interested people. Every September, networks launch campaigns for one of their new shows they're banking on to hit with the audiences. Usually, the network streams the pilot before its premiere date. Sometimes they release a script to the public. So, I have some information about new shows you can watch before the network premiere date. It's not like I'm breaking news because the campaigns launched 3 and 6 days ago, respectively. Follow along for those links as well as others on this Friday. This won't be a long post.

--ABC's Revenge has been promoted so much that it's clear what the network wants from the series. The veteran soaps have aged and they need another night-time soap to assume the torch. ABC believes in Revenge so much so that they've made the script available for anyone with a Kindle. Included in the script is a special code that grants access to the stream of the actual episode. Of course, one doesn't need the actual Kindle to download the script. The kindle software’s available for PC and mac, so download the software and read the script if you want to. I haven't read the script. I glanced at it and shook my head sadly at the formatting errors, aware that a spec script would be burned if turned into an agent or producer like that.

--FOX made the New Girl pilot available in the iTunes store for a free download. On September 13, at 12:05AM, FOX.com and Hulu will stream the episode until the 19th. On the 20th, the only way to watch the pilot will be on FOX. Fans of Zooey will consume this content immediately. Who knows if the online promotion will affect the premiere numbers at all. I assume the premiere won't be affected because the amount of people who will use the internet to watch the pilot represents a small amount of potential viewership.

----A ton of TV DVDs were released on Tuesday. Best Buy, Target, Amazon and any other store has deals for each new set released. If you're a fan of Community, the second season's on sale for $19.99. The first two seasons of Fringe are $19.99 a piece, with the third season slightly more expensive (the prices are Best Buy's). Parks & Recs is two dollars more than Community. For anyone interested in watching a show for the first time, now's the time to buy previous seasons because of the great sales. Criminal Minds, though, seems grossly overpriced.

--Lastly, Grantland re-printed David Foster Wallace's iconic profile of Roger Federer. DFW committed suicide in 2008. The author was considered a genius. Before his death, he wrote many short stories and a huge, challenging novel called Infinite Jest. I haven't read his fiction yet but I own his non-fiction books, which are compilations of his various essays and magazine pieces. He was a tremendous non-fiction writer. The Federer piece is amazing--an 8,700 word piece that made tennis an infinitely more interesting sport because of Wallace's love and admiration for it. If I were able to re-print one of his non-fiction pieces, I'd probably re-print his review of Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky biographies because it's much more than the usual review. It's a celebration of Dostoevsky the author, a criticism of the banality of modern fiction writers, a cry for modern authors to shed their cynicism and write something meaningful and passionate. You can read the Roger Federer piece here: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6940897/federer-religious-experience. I recommend everyone buy his two non-fiction books. His essay about his seven day cruise trip's one of the best pieces of non-fiction I've ever read. The Illinois State Fair piece has one the funniest paragraphs I've ever read. I plan on writing about books eventually, so I'll probably write about some of these non-fiction pieces.

THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK