While we're not getting our hopes up, the idea of the kind of science-fiction memes the brains behind It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia could create keeps us rooting for this series to get made. In an interview with SciFi Wire, Glen Howertonn revealed that the pilot was shot, but is being completely rewritten to include more future world building, aliens and other science fiction stuff.

We just realized it was more fun to embrace the scifi rather than fight against it...In some ways, the first time around we were fighting against it, and I think we fought too hard. It ended up being just not as much fun as it could be. I think we realized that in an attempt to not parody scifi, we ended up almost cutting out too much of the scifi. I think that was a mistake.

Well we certainly like the sound of that. In fact, we thought the sexually deviant holodeck moments in the pilot script were a great jumping off point, so more of that please. Still it's going to Fox..and we all know what happens to things we love there. Apparently, so does Howerton, who explained that he doesn't really know if this "pet project" will ever see the light of day.

While shows like Dollhouse, Fringe and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (and the currently-in-rework new Ron Moore show Virtuality) have shown that the network is one of the more SF-friendly networks out there — Compare Fox's SF line-up to ABC's or CBS's, for example — the seven new pilots yesterday veer away from the genre, perhaps reflecting falling audiences for shows like NBC's Heroes and its own Terminator, as well as the problems the network has had with getting Dollhouse and Virtuality to air.

(The closest show to the genre is an as-yet untitled drama about "reincarnation experts" who solve the problems of their clients' former lives, something about which reminds me of the dear departed Pushing Daisies; perhaps more interesting to comic book fans is the greenlighting of the McG-produced adaptation of Human Target, wherein a bodyguard assumes the identity of his clients to protect them from assassins, but occasionally loses his own sense of identity in the process.)

These seven shows do not represent the entirity of Fox's fall pilot slate - Two other pilots were already announced, including the one sole SF show, comedy Boldly Going Nowhere - but with Terminator and Dollhouse both seen as at risk due to their new Friday timeslots, it'll be interesting to see if the network moves into the 2009 Fall season with Fringe and a new Red Dwarf as their only SF shows... or if Virtuality needs so much re-editing that it gets bumped to September.

Fox lands squadron of pilots [Hollywood Reporter]

A fan posted the script to BGN's first episode, and we think it's genuine. It definitely has the same dickish, raunchy flavor as It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, from the same creators.

Boldly Going Nowhere shines a little star light on a completely inept crew bounding through space supposedly collecting moon rocks for a larger company. Fortunately, the crew's egotistical and slightly dim-witted captain is more content to try and arm the ship illegally with nuclear missiles to journey out for riches and glory. Granted, it's a time of peace, and neither he nor his crew have any real combat experience, but come on — fortune and glory!

It would be really easy to make the comparison between the "Captain" Ron Teague and Futurama's Zapp Brannigan. Both are brash and full of hot air, but they are very different and that's a good thing. Teague, for example, is trying to run a ship that's not just headed by a moron, but completely staffed with a hilariously incompetent crew. For lack of a better comparison, think of the bar staff from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia in space.

It's clearly from the same page, as the crew launches down the same manic and crazed path as Sunny, trying to draft up rules for the sexual abuse the ship's holo-deck is undergoing while trying to catch up on their missing rock quota — that was due months ago — so they won't get fired. Captain Teague is easily going to be a new TV favorite, especially when he argues with the manphibian engineer Pete that he's just trying to "break his balls" for building "boosters" over "thrusters," or when you discover that he replaced the ship's robot parts with a baby dick to keep a robo insurgence in check.

The first episode takes place after the crew lets an inspector from the company on board. The official quickly realizes that Jane (the ship's pilot) is one wrong statement away from driving the ship into a moon, Cobalt (the security officer with a penchant for body building and banana hammocks) is completely unstable, and the second in command Brigsby is a lying liar-pants. It's really a fantastic crew, from the poor robot to the line of crew members waiting outside the holodeck in a towel waiting for their own personal "training" time.

So what's the crew's mission? Well, hopefully they'll keep actual weapons out of the captain's hands. But I think his own incompetence will keep him busy for decades. I eagerly look forward to this series and pledge my TV nights to any space show that can slip in an abortion joke under the radar and not skip a beat. You've got some high expectations with Mr. Day at the helm, Boldly , but I have faith in this crew.

The natural temptation, with a comedy about superheroes who hang out in between saving the world, would be to create a bitchy ensemble of heroes who hate each others' guts. But show creator Drew Pearce says he's going the opposite way, creating a comedy about characters who actually like each other and using actors who are friends offscreen:

Two kinds of sitcom stick out in my mind. You have the one that makes you cringe and keep watching because you can't believe how awful the person at the core of it is; and there's the one where you want to come back and hang out with that group of people again. You need that when you are watching week after week.

Instead of the Central Perk coffee shop, the characters in No Heroics hang out in the Fortress, the heroes' social club/bar where they go to unwind. The walls are lined with the unfulfilled dreams of past heroes, but there's also a sense of cameraderie to go with the snarkiness.

Hero characters include Alex aka The Hotness, who can generate heat with his hands (and use it to microwave his lunch) and Don aka Timebomb, a gay Spanish retired superhero who can see 60 seconds into the future. Then there's the "rotund" Jenny aka She-Force, who always picks the wrong guy to date. And Devin aka Excelsior, who's at the top of the superhero pecking order and very smug about it. All of the characters are constantly jostling for attention and fame.

Most encouragingly, Pearce says he's going to avoid any excessive campiness:

Superhero comedy is seldom, if ever, well done in live action. The best superhero comedy is The Incredibles, and that's a cartoon. There have been some good attempts, such as Larry Charles's The Tick and Ben Stiller's Mystery Men, and a film called The Specials. All had good ideas but fell at the campness hurdle. I was interested in a British take on superheroes, and I think that take was to undercut it and hang out with the unfulfilled of that world; to exercise a kind of 'judo logic', where their weaknesses are actually their strengths.

[The Independent]

The Futon Critic was lucky enough to read the script for an episode and says that yes, it really isIt's Always Sunny in space, full of "selfish idiots" who pretty much ruin their own lives and the lives of others in every episode. The cast is made up with a pompus Captain Ron Teague, pilot Jane Beck (who is bipolar), head of security and body-builder Cobaltand, a robot who has been programed by the captain to be a wuss (the captain is afraid of robot uprisings), and the mechanic Pete who is a Manphibian. Lt. Zander Centari is sent in to make sure the crew is up to snuff, and of course it isn't. I hope this show lasts, just so I can hear the character deliver, "I will come to your home and photon the shit out of it!" before it gets canned by censors and other people who can't take a joke. [Futon Critic]