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The Showtime series Huff centers on psychiatrist Dr. Craig "Huff" Huffstodt (Hank Azaria) who gets a wake-up call after one of his patients commits suicide in his office. Huff struggles with guilt, inadequacy, and the legal consequences in connection with the boy's death. At home, Huff must deal with the conflicting personalities within his own family, including his brother Teddy, a schizophrenic living in a locked facility. Huff's whole existence--as a doctor, husband, father, son, and brother--goes through a reawakening, and life will never be the same again.
A typically offbeat and iconoclastic dramedy from the folks at Showtime, Huff starred Hank Azaria (best known to contemporary fans for his many vocal characterizations on the animated The Simpsons) as Dr. Craig "Huff" Huffstodt, a successful L.A. psychiatrist. When his well-ordered existence and sense of equilibrium were shattered by the suicide of a teenaged patient in his office, Huff embarked upon a difficult and often treacherous journey of self-discovery and re-examination. Unfortunately, he didn't receive too much moral support from his dysfunctional family: Huff's hypercritical, self-absorbed mother, Izzy (Emmy winner Blythe Danner), was going through a divorce and was having enough troubles of her own; his brother, Teddy (Andy Comeau), was not what one could call dependable; his son, Byrd (Anton Yelchin), was experimenting with drugs; and his wife, Beth (Paget Brewster), had her hands full coping with her gravely ill mother, Madeleine (Swoosie Kurtz). Only Huff's attorney friend Russell Tupper (Oliver Platt) was willing to offer advice and comfort, but Tupper too was weighed down with his own personal hang-ups, not least of which was his insatiable sexual appetite. Distinguished by its mordant sense of humor and some truly outrageous plot twists, Huff was created by Robert Lowry (Profiler, Any Day Now), and began its weekly, 60-minute run on November 1, 2004. Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide