Testing limits of faith

Holly Hunter, with her chipmunk face, round eyes, and wee body, bounces around like a pinball in the new TNT drama "Saving Grace." She's never not in motion, banging up against her married lover in the show's opening scene, scurrying here to get another swig of whiskey, reaching there for another cigarette and a few pills, sucker-punching a grabby old letch, and dashing off to preside over another crime scene. Yes, Hunter's reckless, potty-mouthed Grace Hanadarko is an Oklahoma City police detective.

Another actress might have invested Grace with unintentional humor, a creature rushing from "Valley of the Dolls" to "Sid and Nancy" and then straight to camp. But in "Saving Grace," which premieres tonight at 10, Hunter turns in a rich character study of a cop that steers clear of the predictable pathos of self-destruction. Grace is a middle-aged woman doing what cable TV audiences are more used to watching men do -- living on the edge but remaining functional and heroic. And Hunter is beautifully comfortable in the role, letting her intuition guide her through each item in Grace's voluminous psychic baggage.

The problem with "Saving Grace" -- and there is one big problem -- is not Grace, and it's not her police case work, her sentimental bond with her preteen nephew, or her sexual rambunctiousness, which includes showing her breasts to her neighbor through a window. The problem is the "saving" part of the title.

Yes indeed, show creator Nancy Miller has some heavy-handed plans for this unlikely heroine. In the premiere, a wry angel named Earl drops down from heaven, "Angels in America" wings affixed, to lure Grace to the good side. At a low after a drunk-driving accident in her beat-up Porsche, Grace accepts Earl's offer to get her out of trouble. "You're heading for hell," he says, "but God's giving you one last chance." Earl also transports her to the Grand Canyon and turns on the holy light. "It's almost better than sex," Grace purrs in its glow.

Miller has designed Earl to be humorous, more like John Travolta in "Michael" than anyone in "Touched by an Angel," but he is nonetheless condescending. Played by Leon Rippy (Tom Nuttall on "Deadwood"), Earl is a redneck prankster who chews tobacco and jams the Tavares song "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" into every channel on Grace's car radio. He is amused by Grace's cute stubbornness, as she fights against his invitation to accept faith: "I'm gonna have to drag you kicking and screaming, aren't I?" he says with a smirk. Grace reacts with typical irreverence, telling her scientist friend Rhetta (Laura San Giacomo, in kitschy oversize glasses) about Earl and bringing Earl's saliva for a DNA analysis.

Miller, whose previous work includes TNT's "The Closer," also makes gestures toward giving Earl and his God a nondenominational feel. Earl tells Grace in the second episode that his goal is for her to find faith in something, anything. And yet "Saving Grace" is peppered with Christian reference -- Grace's brother is a Catholic priest who gives her a Bible, Rhetta goes to Mass every Sunday, and, wondering about Timothy McVeigh, Grace's nephew says, "Maybe we can ask God when we get to heaven." There's even a cow whose black-and-white pattern forms the face of Jesus. As Rhetta says, "Holy cow!"

Alas, what could have been an unapologetic portrait of a woman who needs to grow up comes off like a slyly judgmental profile of a godless sinner. All Grace's swearing and drinking and feisty sexual energy aren't character traits that challenge the viewer's moral bearings; they are bricks on her road to hell. "Saving Grace" isn't a drama after all, so much as a religious allegory with some very broad strokes.

All the warnings about damnation are particularly odd on a show that's as explicit as some of FX's racier dramas. They ring hollow on a show that's so marvelously textured, with filmic cinematography that brings the rural Midwest to life, right down to the cow poo. And they feel unbearably simplistic on a show that revolves around such a richly drawn and wholeheartedly portrayed woman. I'd rather watch Grace burp in concert with her pet bulldog than watch her submit to Earl's sanctimonious will any day.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. For more on TV, visit boston.com/ae/tv/blog/.