Captain James T. Kirk opens the original “Star Trek” series with these immortal words: “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before!” The excellent “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” takes its title from Captain Kirk’s intro, but it’s not the only show to draw inspiration from this opening narration (though you might be surprised to learn which series I’m referring to here).
In the wake of the meteoric success of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” season 3, 20th Century Fox was interested in anything the show’s creators — Rob McElhenny, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day — had cooking. Hence, while appearing at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con (via IGN), the trio announced they were working on a science fiction comedy series called “Boldly Going Nowhere,” an ironic twist on Kirk’s famous words.
Their idea was to blast the signature humor of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” into outer space with a “Star Trek” parody — specifically, one that focused on the workers at the bottom of the intergalactic totem pole. However, there was practically no word on the series itself in the years that followed. We would eventually get a show with a similar premise in the form of the great animated series “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” but for “Always Sunny” fans, the lack of any updates on “Boldly Going Nowhere” and its development was discouraging.
It wasn’t until August 2022 that we finally got to see two clips of the show’s pilot thanks to the “The Always Sunny Podcast.” Then, one month later, the entirety of the show’s pilot was uploaded to YouTube, and the result proved to be just as chaotic as you might imagine.
Boldly Going Nowhere brings familiar faces to space with chaotic results
Watching the “Boldly Going Nowhere” pilot will almost certainly give “Always Sunny” fans a feeling of déjà vu. Indeed, the “Always Sunny” creatives were able to carry the show’s trademark brand of anarchy and willingness to tackle taboo subjects with gleeful abandon over into their “Star Trek” parody. The pilot itself, which you can watch on YouTube with this link, follows the exploits of Ronald Teague (Ben Koldyke) and his less-than-crack crew aboard the Galactic Coalition Spacecraft Rock Collector 7. But Teague, in true “Always Sunny” fashion, harbors delusions of grandeur and seeks to forsake their actual mission in order to explore the stars.
The “Boldly Going Nowhere” cast features a lot of familiar faces, including actors from the first three seasons of “Always Sunny” and other TV stalwarts. Case in point: David Hornsby, who plays the devolving Rickety Cricket on “Always Sunny” and serves as an executive producer on the show, portrays the ship’s long suffering Lieutenant Lance Brigsby. Similarly, Artemis Pebdani plays an alien communications officer who is only slightly less twisted than her “Always Sunny” character and Frank Reynolds’ (Danny DeVito) on-again-off-again lover, Artemis Dubois.
In addition, the assorted members of the “Always Sunny” gang appear in a series of cameos only, presumably because they wanted to save their acting energy for the flagship series. As such, Kaitlin Olsen plays Lieutenant Brigsby’s unfaithful wife, Charlie Day shows up as a trainee who wants to “unwind” in the holodeck (if you know what I mean), and Rob McElhenny has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role as a TV show pitchman. Meanwhile, Glenn Howerton has the biggest part of the lot, playing an inspector who boards Teague’s ship and quickly finds himself pushed to the edge by its crew’s incompetence.
Among the new faces in the pilot are comedian Lennon Parham, who plays the ship’s pilot and serves as something of a straight man. Finally, Tony Hale of “Arrested Development” fame plays an android trying to foment a workers revolt against Teague, and Oliver Platt (“The Bear”) briefly pops in as the ship’s supervisor.
Some actors made the return journey from space to Philadelphia
Just because “Boldly Going Nowhere” didn’t become a full series doesn’t mean the pilot didn’t make an impact, as two of its stars eventually made their way down to Philadelphia. As a matter of fact, after being cast as the incompetent Captain Teague, Koldyke later appeared in the “Always Sunny” episode “The Gang Exploits the Mortgage Crisis.”
The real MVP of “Boldly Going Nowhere,” however, was Chad L. Coleman. Most will recognize him as Dennis “Cutty” Wise on “The Wire,” but he truly went for broke with his performance as Chief of Security Cobalt in the pilot. Coleman really left nothing on the table, bringing a tense ferocity that makes his performance a sight to behold. It’s not surprising then that, after “Boldly Going Nowhere” failed to move forward, he found his way to “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” in season 6.
While the “Boldly Going Nowhere” pilot has a lot of fun taking the piss out of sci-fi tropes like holodecks, “set phasers to stun,” and the realities of what exploring the stars would actually look like, the episode is also clearly unfinished. Its special effects are pretty unrefined and the sound design is unfinished for large chunks of the runtime (including the final line). Still, it offers a unique glimpse into what could have been in an alternate reality.
