TV Reviews : The Tart-Tongued, Irreverent ‘Gunn’

Tired of TV comedies in which drooling lotharios ogle decolletage-heavy lust-buckets? Then for a change of pace try “Rachel Gunn, R.N.” (premiering Sunday at 8:30 p.m. on Fox, Channels 11 and 6).

Oh, it does open with just such a stereotypical scene between a busty nurse and a lusty doc, but most of the role-reversing episode is thereafter devoted to the title character--played by Christine Ebersole--panting unrepentantly after a buff male stripper she’s trying to get to share her duplex. Progressive or no?

Here, women get excited over “a guy named Thor doing butt clenches in the lobby,” and Ms. Gunn offers said clencher the chance to “wash you like a cat.” Even the nun character who pops up intermittently seems to have a slightly dirty mind.

But the crassness isn’t just limited to sexuality. It’s definitively Fox to have a hospital-set show in which characters make entrances with lines like “Ah, the smell of coffee brewing and old men dying. Doesn’t that just say breakfast?”

Doesn’t that just say gag me with an enema bag? Maybe, but “Rachel Gunn, R.N.” has its moments, even if yet another irreverent sitcom anchored by a selfish, sex-crazed protagonist isn’t your, uh, sack.

Ebersole, whose good work has ranged from “Saturday Night Live” to LATC’s “The Marriage of Bette and Boo” (and who was last seen hitting rock-bottom in “Folks!”), is a gifted comic who plays this high-energy caricature for all the acerbic cartoonishness it’s worth. The one-dimensionality of her tart-tonguedness is bound to be wearing over repeated viewings, but in an initial half-hour dose, anyway, Ebersole’s way with a zinger is winning, and the writers do give her a few wickedly good ones to dish.

(Another comedy series also debuts on Fox Sunday at 7 p.m., “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures,” but preview cassettes were not made available.)