Pilot Error Revisited: "Boldly Going Nowhere"
Rescued from AntennaFree.TV - Original run date: 5/1/13
Fans of FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia have been enjoying the comedic foibles of Charlie, Dennis, and Mac since 2005, but when they’re not otherwise occupied in front of the camera, the gentlemen who play those particular roles—Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, and Rob McElhenney, respectively—have stayed busy behind the scenes as well, serving as executive producers and writers on the show. Meanwhile, they’ve also tried to get a few other shows on the air, but it would be fair to say that they, uh, haven’t quite managed to duplicate the success of Sunny just yet:
The underrated animated series Unsupervised, which they executive-produced, barely survived a single 13-episode season on FX.
How to Be a Gentleman—where they served as consulting producers for their buddy David Hornsby (a.k.a. Cricket on Sunny), who created and starred in the series—got two Thursday-night airings by CBS, was shuffled off to the no-man’s-land of Saturday nights, and lasted a single week its new location before the network shut down production on the serie altogether.
Boldly Going Nowhere, which they created for FOX, never even made it past the pilot.
The story of Boldly Going Nowhere began more than half a decade ago, when McElhenney, Day, and Howerton signed a two-year deal with 20th Century Fox Television in 2008 which also gave them the green light to move forward with a pilot written by Adam Stein, another Sunny alum.
[Photo courtesy of ScottCobbDesign.com]
Described by TheFutonCritic.com in their first mention of the series as “a single-camera comedy for FOX set in the future about the mundane world of a spaceship captain when he's not on a mission,” Boldly Going Nowhere was to focus on Ron Teague, commander of the Rock Collector 7, and his crew—including bipolar pilot Joyce, head of security Cobalt, first officer Lt. Lance Brigsby, communications officer Startemis, a half-man, half-fish mechanic named Pete, and a robot intelligence officer named Robot—as they deal with a new arrival on their vessel: Lt. Zander Centari, who’s been assigned to report back to Alliance Headquarters about whether or not the Rock Collector 7 is shipshape.
As a sci-fi geek and a fan of both Quark and Red Dwarf, it sounds pretty awesome to me, but the pilot script must have left the network execs somewhere closer to tentatively intrigued, as they also asked for five further scripts. Yes, an optimist could view this request simply as a sign of their excitement about where the series might be headed, but based on Brian Ford Sullivan’s examination of the pilot script, it seems far more likely that FOX was scared that, based on what they’d read thus far, the Sunny crew’s sensibilities might not be ready for prime-time.
“Imagine what would happen then if you put Sunny-esque characters in a Star Trek setting, and the comedy dominoes all start to fall into place. There's crew members waiting in line wearing nothing but towels to use the holo-deck for ‘training.’ There's a security officer who frequently jails people for ‘being punk ass bitches.’ There's the use of the phrase ‘baby dick.’ There's brow beating innocent people (‘I will come to your home and photon the shit out of it!’).”
In the end, Sullivan’s take on the script was one which would be echoed by many (though certainly not all) who were fortunate enough to read it: first he says, “I literally lost count how many times I laughed out loud reading this script,” then he admits, “I don't see how FOX could actually air a show like this,” but he closes by declaring, “I will be the first in line if they do.”
When McElhenney, Day, and Howerton attended the 2008 Comic-Con in San Diego later that month, they were unafraid to try to build on the buzz surrounding the pilot, cheerily talking up the series to an IGN correspondent:
By September, Jonathan M. Goldstein, who would go on to write the screenplays for Horrible Bosses and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, had signed on as an executive producer alongside Michael Rotenberg and Nick Frenkel, who—you guessed it—also came from the Sunny camp. A few weeks later, Wayne McClammy, hot on the heels of having helmed “I’m Fucking Matt Damon,” was hired to direct the pilot. Attempts to hire Will Arnett for the cast came to naught, but they did manage to secure another ex-Arrested Development actor: Tony Hale.
[Photo courtesy of ScottCobbDesign.com]
In a Random Roles interview with the Onion AV Club (okay, fine, it was with me), Hale reflected on his experience on the pilot:
“I was really, really stoked. And I’ve gotta tell you, I had the best time on that pilot. I had an absolute blast. Also, someone I worked with on that was Lennon Parham (Best Friends Forever), and she is just so hilarious. In addition to being just a great cast, I remember that the whole time, it was just so fun. I mean, here you are, you’re in a spaceship, and… it was like The Office in space. It was just great. And I’m playing an android who’s got a silver face, and… I don’t have hardly any hair on top, but I had to shave it back to a point, and then they darkened it. I just looked like a freak. And then I had this relationship with a microwave… The whole thing was just so crazy, but it was such a blast.”
Okay, so now we know who played Robot, and if you’re wondering, Lennon Parham played Joyce the pilot, but who else in was the cast?
Well, Benjamin Koldyke—who went on to start in ABC’s Work It, the poor bastard—was assigned as the aforementioned Captain Teague, alongside Chad Coleman (Cobalt), David Hornsby (Lt. Lance Brigsby), and Artemis Pebdani (Startemis). Sadly, IMDb’s listing for the pilot offers no clue as to who would’ve taken on the roles of Pete the mechanic or Lt. Zander Centari, but Natalie Morales (The Middleman) and Yara Martinez (The Lying Game) both playing characters named Ruby. Were they twins? Were they clones? Given the sci-fi premise, I think you have to play the odds and go with the latter.
[Photo courtesy of ScottCobbDesign.com]
As of late 2008, The Hollywood Reporter was suggesting that both Boldly Going Nowhere and Glee both appeared “close to series pickups.” We know what happened to Glee, obviously, but if they were that optimistic at that point, then when did Boldly Going Nowhere begin to boldly go nowhere?
Things started looking sketchy in January 2009, when FOX ordered a new pilot, presumably to address the less family-friendly aspects. By the time March had rolled around, Hale had signed on to a different FOX pilot called Cop House (which, ironically, also went nowhere) while Parham had switched networks and joined CBS’s Accidentally on Purpose.
In August, however, Howerton did an interview with Sci-Fi Wire where he made assurances that the pilot script was simply being retooled, with an eye toward adding more sci-fi to the sci-fi sitcom. Even better, he revealed that they’d added a new collaborator to the mix: Larry Charles, best known at the time for his work on Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Borat. Alas, one can only presume that the collaboration died on the vine, as it’s never been mentioned again.
But is Boldly Going Nowhere truly dead?
Uh, yeah, let’s not kid ourselves: at this point, I think it’s fair to say that it is, since we just celebrated the two-year anniversary of Glenn Howerton Tweeting to a still-optimistic fan that the series had been “shelved for now.” If there’s any chance that the shelf in question is likely to suddenly become unoccupied, rest assured that we’ll let you know.
Full pilot on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fR7av02YIAg
(It’s actually pretty funny.)