Imagine a star-studded project backed by Elton John, riffing wildly off his actual life as a superstar. Imagine it as a cross between Sex in the City, Queer as Folk, and This is Spinal Tap. Then imagine it really gayed-up. And there you have Him and Us, a single-camera comedy pilot starring Anthony Stewart Head (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City) that ABC declined to pick up for its fall schedule.

In Him and Us, Head plays Max Flash, a rock star on his farewell tour. Cattrall plays Freddie Lazarus, his manager, who for 25 years has kept Max's show on the road. Freddie is tired, she's burned out, and she's counting the minutes until his final concert. And she's doing it in her Manolos and showing a lot of leg, kind of like the love child of Ally McBeal and C.J. Craig.

It isn't just that the storyline and some of the characters are gay. It's not the fact that Max ends up in bed (offscreen) with the male Times reporter sent to interview him. It's not the sprinkling of pretty boys around Max's pool, or the young French hottie he's picked up on the tour and asks Freddie to send packing. It's not even the fact that he has a watch engraved “Love, Merv.”

No, based on viewing a copy of the pilot episode provided to AfterElton.com, there's pretty much a gay angle on everything–plot, sensibility, humor, and characters. If this pilot had been picked up, it would have been the gayest show ever on broadcast TV, and there would be very little even on cable that could out-gay it.

Which raises the question, why didn't ABC pick it up? Despite repeated requests, ABC declined to comment for this article. Representatives for Elton John did likewise.

There are dozens of reasons networks don't pick up pilots. Sometimes they're too expensive to produce. Maybe the demographics are wrong for the network's target market. Maybe the pilot isn't as good as it should be. So what was the problem here?

Comedies are on the decline on television right now, in favor of “reality” shows and dramas like Lost and Grey's Anatomy. ABC ordered three times as many comedies to pilot as any other network and only picked up four for the fall schedule. Thus the odds were against Him and Us from the very beginning.

One of the comedies ABC did pick up is The Knights of Prosperity, a David Letterman-shepherded project about an ad hoc gang of neophyte burglars looking to rob Mick Jagger's apartment. Jagger appears in the pilot, just as Elton John appears in the pilot of Him and Us. Maybe in the superstar sweepstakes, Jagger beat out John.

Other comedies that got the nod from ABC include Help Me Help You, a Ted Danson (Cheers, Becker) vehicle about group therapy. Interestingly, this show features a gay male character, played by Jim Rash (That 70s Show) so closeted even he doesn't know he's gay – although he should, given the stereotypical way he's presented in the pilot script. ABC also picked up a multiple-point-of-view, season-long look at one couple's wedding day called The Big Day, and Notes from the Underbelly, about a heterosexual couple having a baby.

Each of those comedies ABC picked up is more conventional than Him and Us. And that may also have been a factor in ABC's decision. The failure of FOX's quirky Arrested Development and the fact that NBC's only slightly less quirky Scrubs has struggled to find a wider audience may have frightened studio executives from anything straying too far from the tried and true sitcom formula.

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