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Nor can The Book of Daniel factor be entirely ruled out. Surely all of the big networks took note of the controversy generated last winter by NBC's one hour drama. Conservative Christian's objected not only to the show's treatment of religion, but to the fact it included Christian Campbell (Trick) as the openly gay son of the Episcopal minister played by Aidan Quinn (An Early Frost) who accepted his son without reservation.

At least four NBC affiliates refused to carry the show, corporations pulled their advertising, and the network was deluged with negative phone calls and emails. It's not hard to imagine NBC worrying that a show as gay as Him and Us might create similar controversy.

Indeed, Him and Us star Kim Cattrall told The Stage magazine, "It would have been a great series. Perhaps the subject matter might have been too much for some people."

So, what was “too much” about the pilot? Just about everything, which is the secret of its charm.

It opens with Cattrall's character having a panic attack in her doctor's office, and closes with her sitting on a jet with Max and his entourage, trying to figure out how she got there, considering she'd quit in the previous scene. Max, it seems, is a hard guy to say “no” to.

The cute French shop clerk doesn't say no, the reporter from the Times doesn't say no, and Freddie can't say no, either, when Max refuses to let her quit.

Aging rock star Max Flash is played with style and wit by Anthony Stewart Head, who starred as the debonair Rupert Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Max is handsome, unbelievably charming, and a bit petulant. He walks around with a little dog in his arms, and grins boyishly at anyone who tries to reign him in.

And while on stage at his farewell concert, attended by Elton John and Ozzy Osbourne (who guest as themselves), he gets hit by a massive wave of regret and announces, while Freddie has a breakdown backstage, that he's not retiring after all.

The supporting cast is dazzling, with Max's gay valet Sidney (Hugh Sachs) pretty much stealing the show. His flashback to an earlier relationship with a mob hit man includes the show's only man-on-man kiss, a quick smooch in a dark car. (Cattrall's assistant Jada, played by Ashley Williams, and Pete, one of the male security agents, played by Michael Trucco of Battlestar Galactica, gets the show's only passionate–and heterosexual–kiss.)

Him and Us was the brainchild of Sex and the City's Cindy Chupack and Desperate Housewives' Michael Edelstein, along with John and his longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin. It's hard to believe something this funny, with that kind of star power behind it, won't get picked up by someone, although AfterElton.com hasn't turned up any signs that's in the works.

ABC did pick up another promising show with a gay character. The one-hour drama Brothers and Sisters, written and created by openly gay Jon Robin Baitz (The Substance of Fire), features Matthew Rhys (Love and other Disasters) as Kevin Walker, an openly gay US district attorney.

Even in dramas, though, networks tend to shy away from presenting strong gay characters. Bryan Fuller (Star Trek: Voyager, Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me), consulting producer for NBC's Heroes, recently told Out, "There was a moment on the set where (Heroes creator Tim Kring) was with an NBC executive, who shall remain nameless, and the exec said, 'Hmm, you need to watch (the [male] cheerleader friend) because that character could be interpreted as gay,' and Tim said, 'Why do we need to watch that?'"

Heroes is a sci-fi drama, with echoes of X-Men, and in an interview on SyFyPortal, Kring was quoted as saying, "I am intrigued by a gay character front and center, and we are openly discussing it in the studio and in the writers' room now. It doesn't scare me at all, and it's always been a battle with networks on that sort of thing. There's a subversiveness that you're forced to think about these things with. You try to come in through a side door."

Maybe, as Cattrall suggested, Him and Us came in the front door way too brazenly for ABC. Perhaps, no matter how sophisticated and witty the pilot was, the network just wasn't at home on the cutting edge.

Or maybe it was just bad luck there were two rock-star-backed projects in the works at the same time and the most heterosexual one was the safer bet. Whatever the reason, unless Him and Us finds a place on another network (unlikely) or cable (for which it's probably too expensive), it's some of the best, and gayest, TV you'll never see.

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