PLAYING BY WOMEN'S RULES AS TV ROLES GET MEATIER, MORE VETERAN BIG-SCREEN ACTRESSES MAKING AN IMPACT.

Byline: DAVID KRONKE

>TV WRITER

It started with Los Angeles Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson.

As played by the inspired Kyra Sedgwick on "The Closer," Brenda was a fast-food junkie flibbertigibbet off the job, but an iron gauntlet on it, capable of reining in a squad of men-will-be-boys investigators and tripping up and breaking even the most guileful suspects in the interrogation room.

TNT's "The Closer" has ushered in a new era of female characters on cable TV, women who are strong-willed, quirky and deeply -- and fascinatingly -- flawed. And many of these roles are luring to television veteran actresses best-known for their film work. Since "The Closer," cable has given us:

Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker), the single mom who makes ends meet by selling pot in suburbia on Showtime's "Weeds."

Lucy Spiller (Courteney Cox), the brittle tabloid editrix who toys with the lives of her employees and magazine subjects in FX's "Dirt."

Dahlia Malloy (Minnie Driver), the drug-addicted grifter who's ambivalent about the dizzying scam her husband is pulling on FX's "The Riches."

This past week, Sedgwick, Parker and Driver were all rewarded with Emmy nominations for their rich and nuanced portrayals of their unique characters, and this summer on TV looks to be defined by more compelling turns by veteran actresses. We were introduced to yet another last week -- a tough-love family therapist:

Ann Bellowes (Lili Taylor) on Lifetime's "State of Mind" -- and will meet two more this week:

Hard-living Oklahoma City detective Grace Hanadarko (played by Oscar winner Holly Hunter), who grapples with inner demons and an angel who hopes to turn her life around, on TNT's "Saving Grace."

Ruthless New York litigation attorney Patty Hewes (five-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close), who's not reticent to bend the law to see justice done, on FX's "Damages."

"It really does seem that a door has been opened," notes Hunter. "In the '70s, anti-heroes were all over the place in cinema, and now it seems that it's happening on television with women."

"It seems like TV is pushing itself," observes "State of Mind's" Taylor. "And if it's pushing itself, it's going to probably push itself off in the realm of the feminine. -- If it's more complicated, the female is going to be more complicated, and I think that's what might be what's happening."

"One thing that's interesting about the number of women that are in these series (is) ... many of these shows are on cable," adds Todd Kessler, co-creator of "Damages." "There are a lot of actresses who are interested in doing television who previously wouldn't have been, (who) now are all about my age ... and I think people are writing for that," says "Weeds" ' Parker.

"I think that's what people are doing to attract certain actresses who aren't quite in their 20s anymore."

Herewith, the down-and-dirty women of summer 2007.

David Kronke, [phone] [e-mail]

www.insidesocal.com/tv/

"Saving Grace"

Premieres Monday at 10 p.m. on TNT.

Holly Hunter was so intoxicated by the myriad dysfunctions in Grace Hanadarko, the boozing, carousing anti-hero in "Saving Grace," that she declares, "I didn't want anyone else to play her.

"This is a woman who craves," Hunter says. "She has cravings, she has longings, she has desires that were very attractive to me, because I felt they hadn't been through some sort of censoring process. She's raw. Her needs, desires and instincts are raw and unprocessed; they haven't gone through any civilized process, but that's what makes her a great cop.

"I found her powerful in a female way," she continues. "She has great forces of creativity and destructiveness. Her sexuality was large, and that was something I really, really wanted to explore.

"She's a woman engaged in white-heat living. There's something darkly romantic about her, but not romantic in the traditional sense of the word. She truly burns the candle at both ends."

Hunter concludes, "I don't know if I've ever encountered a character like her, not only in my career but also in what I've seen in TV and films. She's really kind of original."

In the course of the series, Grace will receive advice from a good-ol'-angel named Earl, but Hunter says her spiritual journey will be halting, at best: "Four steps forward, 15 steps back," she says, laughing.

"She's just barely legal, and we like it like that." Hunter notes that the cop-show element of "Saving Grace" takes a back seat to explorations of the characters' psyches. "It's much more about her state of mind than it is about the kind of procedural way that cops shows usually unfold. There's nothing procedural about this show. It really is from her singular point of view."

Hunter also acknowledges that the show is far edgier than the usual TNT series.

"TNT really wanted to step out with this," she says. "They wanted to live up to the 10 p.m. time slot. Audiences have to have a certain maturity to tune in. They want to broaden their own identity and explore things creatively as a network. Cable is offering certain creative freedoms, and they're taking cable up on that offer."

"State of Mind"

Sundays at 10 p.m. on Lifetime Premiered July 15.

In "State of Mind," family therapist Ann Bellowes (Lili Taylor) walks in on her husband having sex with their couples therapist and, thereafter, ceases coddling her self-absorbed clients -- she implores one couple, after their inevitable divorce, never to remarry.

"The challenge (for) me (is depicting) the tension with how she keeps her life from leaking over into her practice," Taylor says.

"(It's) kind of an interesting and not-easy-to-answer question.

"I've always been interested in psychology," she adds. "I have had therapists. ... I figure, hey, a hundred bucks and you feel a little better when you leave, why not."

The series was created by Amy Bloom, herself a therapist for two decades who says Ann's sensibility mirrors her own.

"It might be more useful to (some patients) to help them see what they are doing to each other rather than to be endlessly reassuring about how everybody is doing their best and blah, blah, blah," Bloom says. "I have to say, the older I got and the longer I practiced, the less I was inclined towards blah, blah, blah.

"Reassurance is not actually the primary coin of helping people change, however it may be portrayed. Helping people change is a painful process. It's not an easy process. If it was an easy process, people would do it all the time. And you have only to look at your own family to (see that) people actually find it very hard to change."

Which, of course, makes for good -- and, the producers hope, long-running -- TV.

"Damages"

Premieres Tuesday at 10 p.m. on FX.

Patty Hewes, Glenn Close's ruthless high-stakes litigation attorney in "Damages," seems to take pleasure in being called "a real, hard-ass bitch." After viewers see the extents to which she's willing to go to win a high-stakes class-action suit against an Enron-type executive, they might consider the description to be somewhat mild.

"I had a wonderful time talking to some very high-powered, successful female lawyers in New York," Close recalls. "Because for me, the whole interest was the gender, that this person was a woman at the head of her own law firm in a very, very high-powered, male-dominated world. And I can't say that I know exactly every step of how she got to where she got, but I know she has a lot of war stories. And I love that about her."

Close notes that she has never shied away from doing TV -- she followed her breakthrough performances in "The World According to Garp" and "The Big Chill" with a TV movie, "Something About Amelia."

"Maybe (TV writers are) more willing to explore more complex female characters, and you have this great luxury of doing it over a series, 13 episodes or however long you're in it," Close says. "As (opposed to the) kind of the the Hollywood movie, where I think older women or women, you know, who aren't just there to be pretty, are much more problematic. And so to find these real authentic, complex or strong female parts, I think that kind of writing is being done for television. I personally feel that some of the great writing out there today is on television."

>TV this week

"Engineering Egypt" at 9 tonight; National Geographic Channel.

How the combination of visionary genius and oppressive slave labor created the Great Pyramid of Giza is examined in "Engineering Egypt"

"Mystery!: Nemesis" at 9 tonight on KCET.

Agatha Christie's Miss Marple (Geraldine McEwan) is asked to solve a crime before it has even been committed on a coach tour.

"PBS Previews: 'The War'" at 10:30 tonight on KCET.

Get a sneak peak at Ken Burns' next epic documentary on World War II (debuting in September).

"CMA Music Festival" at 9 p.m. Monday on ABC.

Martina McBride, Rascal Flatts and Brad Paisley are among the luminaries taking part in this country bash.

"Eureka" at 9 p.m. Tuesday on Sci Fi.

The town of geniuses faces an inconvient truth when a sudden climate change occurs.

"Locked Up Abroad: Peru" at 10 p.m. Tuesday; National Geographic Channel.

Two young American women were promised a luxury holiday in Peru; instead, they found themselves facing six-year prison sentences for smuggling drugs 7/8 their sordid story unfolds.

"Hairworld: The Pursuit of Excellence" at 8 p.m. Wednesday; KCET. Really 7/8 the Hair Olympics? Incredibly enough, it exists, as you'll discover.

"S.O.B. Socially Offensive Behavior" at 9 p.m. Wednesday on BET.

D.L. Hughley hosts a hidden-camera show that addresses hot-button issues.

"Welcome to the the Parker" at 11 p.m. Thursday on Bravo.

The intense, perhaps insane, struggles involved in maintaining a five-star hotel are unveiled.

"Doctor Who" at 9 p.m. Friday on Sci Fi.

"Desperate Housewives' " Ryan Carnes becomes a pig-faced chap when the Doctor visits 1930 Manhattan.

"Psych" at 10 p.m. Friday on USA.

It's our fake pyschic Shawn (James Roday) vs. a real psychic in a race to solve a case.

CAPTION(S):

6 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 3 -- cover -- color) IT'S A FEMALE THING

Tough women power their way to the top in new TV shows

(4) Holly Hunter stars as Grace Hanadarko, a boozing, dysfunctional cop on TNT's new series "Saving Grace." 'She has great forces of creativity and destructiveness," says Hunter of her character.

(5) no caption (Lili Taylor)

(6) no caption (Glenn Close)

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> TV this week (see text)