‘Parenthood’ pops and sparkles in season 3

Brothers are doing it for themselves. (Danny Feld/NBC)

It’s not a secret that NBC has a viewership problem, but the good news for the few but faithful who are still watching is that it’s got some gems hiding in plain sight.

You can’t talk about Parenthood without addressing its enormous cast of 15 regulars, not counting all the recurring guests. It’s a strength that can work for the show, because if you aren’t invested in this person’s story, there’s bound to be another one going on for you to get wrapped up in.

It can also turn into a liability. Writing for that many characters means it’s impossible for you to serve everyone, every episode. Teenage Drew and grandma Camille have done their share of riding the bench, but they certainly haven’t been lonely there.

Lauren Graham’s character Sarah has been a weak link, flitting between boyfriends and careers, never seeming to quite find her place. This season has at least given her character some ongoing story threads, but her performance here doesn’t achieve the empathy that others manage, and it has been holding Sarah back. Her current love triangle and standoff with her father seem to overcome or at least tackle some of these obstacles, so maybe there’s hope.

But she’s an exception. With so many moving parts and constantly shifting family dynamics, this show manages to connect more often than it whiffs. That’s thanks to solid writing that seems to know where it’s going. In season 2, tensions culminated around a satisfyingly fraught Thanksgiving dinner that set the course for the rest of the year.

For season 3, baby drama abounds, as Julia and Joel move toward adopting a baby from a young girl working the coffee cart in Julia’s office. This has much potential for schlock, but the story slowly wins you over by having a sense of humor about it (one episode was called “Hey, If You’re Not Using that Baby”) and allowing characters to raise perfectly valid objections and concerns about this wacky plan.

The other new addition to the Braverman clan is Nora, just born to Kristina (Monica Potter), who is struggling with postpartum depression as her eldest daughter gears up for college and her husband Adam is busy with his new business. Potter’s performance this year has been masterful and understated, and I’m fully prepared for her to be criminally ignored  by next year’s Emmy nominations, in the tradition of FNL-era Connie Britton or Gilmore-era Graham.

From her devastating “breakup by proxy” scene with Hattie’s boyfriend Alex (Michael B. Jordan) to her quiet desperation as her in-laws and relatives descend on the new baby, she is delivering on every front. It’s nice that a family soap blessed with such a deep bench also offers them the material to make the show sing.

This burgeoning cast also gives writers the chance to shuffle the deck and create unlikely pairings. When Asperger’s-afflicted Max gets detention at school, it’s newly independent older cousin Amber who ultimately manages to connect with him, leading to a satisfying moment during the family reunion for Nora’s birth.

Dax Shepard as Crosby has been another surprise, as many have already noted. His interplay with older brother Adam as they embark on a new business venture has been overshadowed by his own struggles as a dad sharing custody and desperately holding on to his relationship with the son he only recently discovered he had.

As for Adam, teaming him up with Crosby does a lot to solve the problems with his previous job as a shoe company executive. It seemed implausible or at least unprofessional that family members would materialize unannounced at his office for counseling or favors each week. Now that the brothers are running a recording studio together, family drop-ins are at least more believable, if still not always organic.

Creating a rich family of characters and developing the realistic conflicts between them is a tall order. But this is a writers room that has not backed down from the challenge. And to their credit, when they have to make a choice between making a big scene for TV or executing it in a realistic way, they choose verisimilitude just about every time.

The joys of parenthood and family are found in the small moments, after all.

PARENTHOOD season 3
Tuesdays, 10p/9c, NBC