Huff & Stuff

For over a decade now the two major pay-cable behemoths HBO and Showtime have been waging a creative war with their original programming. This competition has been a boon to viewers, starving for interruption-free adult-themed drama and comedy. For the span of a decade, though, HBO, with "The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under," "Oz," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and "Sex and the City" has been playing the AFC, outshining a limper NFC line-up of Showtime, whose dramatic array of "Queer as Folk," "The L Word," and "Dead like Me" has been more groundbreaking than spellbinding. (And a brief word about "Dead like Me"--huh? I still don't get the premise of dead people walking among the living, interacting when they see fit. Even for a supernatural dramedy, this wouldn't compute in the Ninth Dimension).

But the creative scales have been recalibrating in recent months. HBO's replacements for their powerhouse shows, the elusive Lynchesque "Carnivale" and the fuck-filled "Deadwood," are too dark and dreary for my Sunday nights. Showtime's dramas have improved vintage-like with age, and with its first-season drama "Huff," it's caught up qualitatively with HBO's programming. "Huff" ended its season with the requisite cliffhanger, but it was very well-orchestrated. All the major characters and plot lines neatly dovetailed, and we faded out after Huff, screaming "You fucked my mother" at his best friend, accidentally hurled said buddy down a flight of stairs in front of smug Mommy, angry wife, bewildered son and dying mother-in-law, as his schizophrenic brother drove away in a, well, figurative huff.

The first year of "Huff" had its defects, but that's normal in any series's growing pains, and it was nothing that kept it from being appointment TV. It hasn't reached the dramatic heights (and depth) of my favorite drama, "Six Feet Under," but that fault may lie in the purity of its execution. The central focus of the show, Hank Azaria's psychiatrist, is subdued, objective and emotionally repressed, as his professional demeanor demands. This character is conceived honestly and played well by Azaria, but also lacks the charisma of someone like Peter Krause's hyperconflicted funeral director on "Six Feet Under." Azaria is a true Hollywood professional, and I get the feeling that I'd like him personally, but he'll never be a marquis idol. That's probably good for the longevity of his career; however his presence will always require someone more stellar and animated against whom he can react.

The producers nicely accommodated him with Oliver Platt, in the Golden Globe role as a hyperkinetic drugged-out attorney, and Blythe Danner as his selfish, world-weary mother. Platt's character, Russell, while entertaining, is totally incredible, even for a Century City lawyer. His shenanigans make Arnie Becker look like the Pope on Nyquil. Blythe Danner's character, however, is fascinatingly complex--a Livia who is forever tempted by her better instincts and suppressing them. I don't quite accept the chemistry that draws her to Russell, but not all plot points have to work in a successful character show; relationships are irrational, and come and go, just as in life.

The show fares better with its incidental players. Russell's acerbic Filipino secretary Maggie lights up every scene with each line delivery. Lara Flynn Boyle's wacko stalker is an over-the-top conceit, but she plays this wildly crazy person with such sincere gusto that you understand why Huff refuses to discard her. Huff's secretary is an interesting mix of worldliness and religious zeal, and his wise-beyond-his-years son Bird, annoyingly perfect at first, won me over with his genuine warmth. That's a veneer that the writers will enjoy pummeling as he plows through his troublesome teens and discovers Rebellion.

One cavil I have with the program is Teddy, the nutso brother. He was initially used as a sounding board for Huff in several episode codas. This smacked of the old "King of Hearts" cliche of the insane man bearing the clearer insights of the Truth. When Teddy's role was expanded to reveal the gulf that separates him from his guilt-ridden mother, his story took on more focus, but I still find him uncomfortable (as perhaps I should). On the other hand, there's an underlying reality to his existence--many shrinks go into the field because they have intimate knowledge of mental illness, and are motivated to help others in similar plights.

I should also mention the mesmerizing title sequence, Daliesque in its visual images and whispered dialogue. It's a very creative rendition of the complex modern stimuli that render us all so confused and vulnerable, from Rorschach to the World Trade Center.

Plot lines will have to be more organic and inventive in upcoming seasons, especially for the two leads (Azaria and Paget Brewster as his emotionally constipated wife), but I will be watching. Still, I do wish both HBO and Showtime would vary their schedules and not put all their original programs in competing Sunday slots. For some complicated reasons I am unable to videotape my pay-cable stations, so I have to do an awful lot of personal time-shifting to catch up with all the best adult episodic TV. But if I OD, I can always do what a friend often suggests, and what Huff might say to an overstimulated patient--"Go read a book."