ABC BRINGS BACK A 'JOB' MEDIUM-WELL DONE.

Byline: - David Kronke

All evidence to the contrary, there is a sitcom with laughs on ABC - ``The Job,'' Denis Leary's caustic comedy about New York's Finest's worst behavior.

Returning for a second year after a brief run as a midseason replacement last spring, ``The Job'' offers not just Leary's Mike McNeil misbehaving, but the entire precinct - cops masquerade as priests to hear perps' confessions, get soused with suspects, use inside mob information to bet the ponies and even vie against one another for a primo apartment after the tenant has been murdered (desultorily noting, of course, that the blood stains will be difficult to remove).

As amusing as the setups are, the payoffs tend to be a little on the predictable side, and McNeil doesn't seem as wickedly amoral and rudderless as he was last season. He has a very funny scene in tonight's premiere in which he impatiently takes questions from a pampered private-school kid during a ride-along - he blithely tells the girl he prefers shooting unarmed suspects because it's not nearly as dangerous as shooting at those with guns - but that's the evening's best scene by a long shot.

Some of the material lunges more obviously for its shock value than for real laughs. Bits with a ``hot nun'' who flirts salaciously with her interrogators tonight and potential cannibalism in a future episode are all set up with not enough follow-through.

But at least Leary, co-creator Peter Tolan and the cast are willing to try to stretch considerably beyond the usual sitcom conventions, even though, in the end, they usually end up somewhere fairly predictable. The show's probably fairly off-putting to a lot of timorous viewers as is, in its semi-compromised state, but it's really at its most twistedly funny when it's testing network TV's boundaries both in situations and character development.

``THE JOB''

What: Denis Leary's dark comedy about the life of New York cops.

The stars: Denis Leary, Bill Nunn, Lenny Clarke, Diane Farr, Adam Ferrara, John Ortiz.

Where: ABC (Channel 7).

When: 9:30 tonight.

Our rating: Three stars

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