DECADENCE AT ITS MOST 'FABULOUS'.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

Before there was ``Sex and the City,'' the British series ``Absolutely Fabulous'' was television's premier comedy depicting gay male decadence via insatiable female characters. In 1995, Roseanne tried - and failed - to Americanize the series (which is just as well, since the networks would insist on making the characters less pathetic, less scabrous and more - shudder - likable). Instead, ``Cybill'' and ``High Society'' served as watered-down versions; neither had much of an impact on audiences.

No, if you want wretched excess done right, you must stick with the original. ``Absolutely Fabulous'' returns to Comedy Central with six new episodes, and five years after the last ``AbFab'' series, it's clear that public relations whiz but private relations disaster area Edina (series creator and writer Jennifer Saunders) and fashion editor Patsy (Joanna Lumley) - whose hair has been peroxided to the consistency of straw - haven't learned a thing. If anything, their boorish intellects are more regressive than ever: Patsy has shaved even more years from her age.

Now, Edina has added a TV production company to her portfolio, but like most TV production companies, she doesn't have anything actually in production (she has a Web site, too, but again, there's nothing actually to see). She does have a grating new colleague, Katy Grin (Jane Horrocks, who also plays the PR firm's receptionist, Bubbles), who transforms perkiness into palpable insanity.

The plots aren't much - tonight, Edina and Patsy go on a bender before she's to make a TV appearance with her client, Twiggy; next week, she pursues her gardener, and the following week, she heads to Paris for a photo shoot with her dour daughter, Saffron (Julia Sawalha).

What makes ``Absolutely Fabulous'' a gas are Edina's ninth-ring-of-hell fashion-victim ensembles - mere words cannot do injustice to these ghastly costumes - and the bitchy bickering between the characters. Edina to Saffron: ``Why does everything you wear look like it's bearing a grudge?'' Saffron to Edina: ``You always have the best view in the room because you're not looking at yourself.'' Patsy, kvetching in general: ``Every abnormal skin cell now has its own (charity).''

Likewise, watching the girls desperately lose their grasp on youthful trendiness is sort of like watching the world's funniest train wreck. Tonight, Patsy blows past Botox and injects Parralox, which renders her face impassive as cardboard: ``You have emotions, but don't have to pay for them in wrinkles.'' Next week, Edina wears an inflatable bra that deflates with an audible hiss as her beau presses against her.

Fans will be pleased that Edina and Patsy show no ill effects from their five-year layoff; they're as biliously self-absorbed as ever. Newcomers may be surprised at the brightly colored depravity but nonetheless amused at the bite of the tart insults, much sharper than the average American sitcom's.

``ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS''

What: New adventures of England's most decadent fashion victims.

The stars: Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha, Jane Horrocks.

Where: Comedy Central

When: 9 tonight; also 3 p.m. Saturdays.

Our rating: Three stars

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Photo:

Jennifer Saunders, left, and Joanna Lumley are set to return tonight on Comedy Central's ``Absolutely Fabulous.''