Ken Tucker’s Pop Culture

With “The Wire” completed–perhaps in more ways than one; a pox on you, HBO, if you don’t renew this greatest of all current dramas!–what’s the most neglected good show on cable? “HUFF,” the Showtime entry that has huffed and puffed and been unable to blow away many viewers. Clearly, Showtime thought that this would be their “Six Feet Under”–prestige-building appointment television featuring complex family relationships worthy of Emmy nominations. As it is, the series is lucky its network renewed it for a second season soon after it premiered, because scheduling it for Sunday nights at 10 p.m. has been a disaster for its attempt to build any traction with viewers.

All that said, boy, did you miss the best piece of television about Christmas this past Sunday (check it out in reruns this Wednesday at 9 and Friday at 10). The ongoing tale of psychiatrist Craig “Huff” Huffstodt, his family, friends, and patients, “HUFF” stars a leaner, cannier Hank Azaria than has ever been seen. He’s so good at spaniel-eyed empathy (when consulting with a buggy client) and crinkly-eyed warmth (when dealing with his family) that I can safely say he approaches the brilliance of his voice-work on “The Simpsons.”

You probably haven’t been following this serial drama, so let me just cut to “HUFF”’s Christmas story, which found the doc’s wife, Beth, in a frantic tizzy, preparing for the holiday arrival of her family. Paget Brewster, who played Andy Richter’s boss when he controlled the universe and broke the hearts of both Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc when she guest-starred in a memorable arc on “Friends” (and how many memorable “Friends” arcs were there?), is pitch-perfect as an intelligent woman at emotional loose ends: She’s just found out that her mother (guest star Swoosie Kurtz) has cancer, and her live-in mother-in-law (regular–and regularly magnificent–Blythe Danner) is causing Beth even more annoyance than usual with her dithering condescension.

The episode tilted on Beth’s meltdown at dinner when her mom declined to tell the family of her possibly-fatal illness, a calibrated meltdown for which Brewster deserves one of those phantom “HUFF” Emmys. Nearly as good are Anton Yelchin as Huff teen son Bird (rarely has a teenaged boy been portrayed as such a smart sweetie) and the family lawyer and Huff’s buddy Russell (Oliver Platt, finally finding the right TV role as a truly wise wisecracking, substance-abusing, sex-addicted brainiac headed for cardiac arrest).

I’m not going to run on and on. Watch the rerun and e-mail me in the morning; we’ll huff some more.