Patricia Arquette was excited to work with guest star Anjelica Huston, but the Emmy-winning star of "Medium" was — oddly enough — somewhat "embarrassed" to have the Oscar-winning actress join the cast for six episodes.

"It was wonderful. I've always been such a big fan of hers, and I'm so grateful that she did us this honor to come on our show," Arquette said in a conference call with TV critics. "But I was kind of shy of her. I'd met her before, but I still was kind of shy."

And she was "slightly embarrassed."

"Coming from the film world, the way television works is so nonconducive to doing the best kind of work you can," Arquette said. "I felt sort of apologetic about how quickly you have to move and how little time you have to explore things. I felt guilty in some way."

"It's not your fault, though," interjected Jake Weber, who co-stars as Arquette's TV husband, Joe.

The two of them have a real-life relationship that seems to echo their onscreen chemistry. Despite the fact that Arquette's character, Allison, has psychic abilities she uses to help solve crimes, Allison and Joe's marriage is perhaps the most realistic fictional marriage on television.

"One of the strongest suits of the show is that it portrays a marriage that is full of all the problems and challenges that real marriages have to face," Weber said.

As the fourth season of "Medium" begins tonight at 9 on NBC/Ch. 5, Allison and Joe are in trouble. Not only has he lost his job, but she's been "outed" as a psychic and can no longer work for the district attorney's office.

(With a new man in charge, the prosecutors and police detectives she worked with are in trouble, too.)

"It's nice to change things up a little bit," Arquette said. "And the fact that they're both out of work at the beginning of this season and that, as a couple, they don't really have much of a nest egg to fall back on, is a situation a lot of Americans find themselves in. And I think the strength of our show is the marital relationship and the reality of that family — how much it echoes other Americans' experience."

In the midst of Allison and Joe's money woes, Cynthia Keener (Huston) makes an appearance. She's a private investigator who helps find missing people, but she's in it for the money.

"We're both out of work. We're both worried about how we're going to support our family. And she steps in and sort of gives me a way that I can ... help solve crimes," Arquette said. "But she's also sort of dark. She's a little bit mercenary.

"It's one thing to work for the district attorney. ... It's a different thing to be asking families who have lost children for reward money. And yet you have your own family to support."

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com