The last "Huff" post

So it all comes to an end and what are we left with? Well, last night sitting through "Huff"'s season and now series finale, I kept thinking about the characters and plotlines they raised and then forgot about.

This is not unheard of in television, but usually it's explainable (if not excusable) for a number of reasons not really availble to "Huff". Bad audience reaction, an actor's sudden unavailibility, the writers just deciding to go a different way after the show had begun airing.

But the second season of "Huff was written, shot, and completed before it even began airing. You would think that would mean it should be virtually watertight, with very few loose ends or logic holes.

So, to name but one example, what happened to the Sharon Stone character? I didn't like her much but they made a big to-do about introducing her and it looked like she was going to be one of Russell's big plot-lines and then, whoops!

In retrospect, the casting of Stone as a guest star that they hoped would jack up the ratings was a clue to the bad sign under which this season was born. If memory serves, it premiered the same weekend as "Basic Instinct 2," which as we know failed miserably.

Which meant "Huff" had as their biggest guest star of the season the woman about whom a whole nation had just said, as one, "Eh! We've seen it!"

The least I can say is this. The return of series creator Robert Lowry to the writer's chair did at least make this finale a little easier to sit through than the last couple episodes. And he did at least suggest a reason for Byrd's seemingly unmotivated character change. Although he also offered a new seemingly unmotivated character change, from Beth's mother, and moved Angelica Huston's character from empathy to apparent clairvoiance.

But even he couldn't save his series from all the wrong turns it's made this year, and two of the biggest plot "twists" last night were so predictable that I calmly voiced them before they happened ("And she goes into labor." "And he's going to kill her.").

I continue to be impressed with Hank Azaria as a dramatic actor and hope he'll find such a role that can sustain him (or vice-versa) for more than a season.

But, finally, the last image of the show was one of the most offensive I have ever seen. A pull-back from a clueless and adrift Craig on a rooftop, to the glittering lights of Los Angeles at night, while Tony Bennett's "The Good Life" (oh, the irony!) begins to play.

So the final message of "Huff" becomes: Feel sorry for the children of privilige, for they indeed do have it just as bad as you. Right. Of course, the really ironic thing is that at the end of the first season you did kind of feel sorry for them.

In retrospect, perhaps mostly because they hadn't begged you so much to.