"Huff"

2004-2006
There are certain actors you only need to see once, to know that you'd like to see them in anything they ever do. Sometimes this instinct serves us not well - Hank Azaria (THE BIRDCAGE, MYSTERY MEN), come on down. HUFF revolves around a psychiatrist trying to keep his life together in the face of patients who test his faith in himself (including one who commits suicide in his office), a controling mother (Blythe Danner - MEET THE PARENTS, FUTUREWORLD), a man-child best friend (Oliver Platt - THE IMPOSTERS, THE WEST WING - who, to the surprise of no one, nearly steals the show), a sensitive son (Anton Yelchin - ALPHA DOG), and a stressed-out wife (Paget Brewster - CRIMINAL MINDS). It's easy to be sucked in, there's a lot to love - sharp, funny dialogue plus fantastic acting (throw Swoosie Kurtz, Robert Forster, Lara Flynn Boyle, Annie Potts, Sharon Stone, and Tom Skeritt into the mix). But the show tantalizes without gelling. And then the season 1 finale overreaches so badly it almost becomes shark-jumping farce. This show makes you realize why both psychiatrists and shows about psychiatrists should perhaps forever be avoided. The story arcs into a scenario where Huff is tempted to "stray", and the way this supposedly highly-educated human being reacts to human nature is simply embarrassing...mirroring the fact that psychology is the only institutionalized branch of "learning" that tries to contort human beings into something we are absolutely not - monogamous. Here we are, thirty years after THE BOB NEWHART SHOW, and we're basically just as dishwater dumb when it comes to sex (on TV, anyway). Perhaps the show came together in season 2, but i may never know.