Remember Super Size Me? Morgan Spurlock made that documentary film about what happened to his body after he ate nothing but McDonald's for 30 days straight. That artist-as-guinea-pig approach was echoed by several writers in the early 2000s, including humorist A.J. Jacobs, who in 2007 wrote My Year of Living Biblically, in which he tried to fit every aspect of his life according to the rules set forth in the Bible. It's remarkable that it took so long for Jacobs' gimmicky book to get turned into a gimmicky sitcom. On Living Biblically, Jay R. Ferguson (Stan from Mad Men) plays Chip Curry, a guy at a crossroads in his life: After the death of a friend and with a baby on the way, he freaks out and opts to live, you know, biblically.

There's nothing wrong with a high-concept sitcom — ALF, Gilligan's Island, and How I Met Your Mother all had complicated and/or contrived premises, and they did fine — but it's the faith element that turned this show a high wire act. In its pursuit of laughs, Living Biblically risked offending true believers, but then if it was too gentle with its subject matter, it could alienate non-religious viewers. That's a tough balancing act, and something had to give — as it did on April 19, when CBS announced it was pulling Living Biblically from the schedule.