Holding Patterns - Unaired 2013 Pilot (Patreon)

Was it the recasting?

666 Park Avenue alum Robert Buckley has exited NBC’s comedy pilot Holding Patterns after the table read. The project, from writer Justin Spitzer, Peter  Traugott’s TBD Prods and Universal TV, is an ensemble multi-camera  comedy about a group of friends whose lives completely change after they  survive a plane crash. Buckley was to play one of them, Chad, Griffin’s  (Humphrey Ker) and Leah’s (Chyler Leigh) arrogant, misogynistic friend,  now a successful chick-lit author who returns home for the wedding. I  hear among the reasons for Buckley’s departure was the fact that when  the cast got together for the table read, it became apparent that  Buckley looks a lot like Ker, while the producers have been looking for a  more dramatic differentiation between the two characters. Buckley is  the latest actor to leave a pilot this season as the networks rush to  cast some 100 pilots within six weeks.