It’s Hello, and Goodbye, to Dear Edina and Patsy

They’re back, in all their ridiculous glory: Edina and Patsy, madcap heroines of “Absolutely Fabulous,” a BBC comedy series that has found a considerable cult following here in the States. Edina and Patsy are frivolous, foolish and irresponsible, and there’s hardly a substance on Earth they haven’t abused--and yet, in some nutty way, we love them.

The series is the inspired creation of Jennifer Saunders, who writes it and stars as Edina, with the invaluable Joanna Lumley as Patsy. They’re two working gals in London who seem never to work but spend lots of time shopping, drinking, stumbling and falling down.

Comes now what is billed as the series finale, a two-hour special called “Absolutely Fabulous: The Last Shout,” in which Edina is momentarily distracted when her daughter Saffron (Julia Sawalha) decides to get married.

“Last Shout” can be seen Sunday night on Comedy Central, the prankish cable channel. To celebrate the event, Comedy Central will precede the film with an all-day marathon of past “Ab-Fab” episodes starting at noon. If your cable system doesn’t include Comedy Central in its lineup, and you’re a fan of the show, not to worry. “Last Shout” will be available in home video stores as of Monday morning, right after the TV premiere.

Like its two central characters, the plots for “Ab-Fab” tend to be models of disorganization. The proposal of marriage from Saffron’s boyfriend doesn’t occur until more than 20 minutes in, after Edina and Patsy have had plenty of time, and champagne, to lavish on themselves. Patsy goes to sleep each night with an unlit cigarette between her lips so that it’s right there in the morning when she wakes up.

Edina is on yet another of her quests for self-fulfillment as the story opens. She’s floating in a tank with what she calls a dolphin but which looks much more like a whale. Soon her townhouse is beset with the usual bedlam: Her dear dotty mother (June Whitfield) brings home a couple of strange codgers wearing T-shirts that say things like “I don’t do cookies” and “I’m spending my kids’ inheritance.” And the lunatic evangelist played by Mo Gaffney returns, this time in hiding from the Scientologists.

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In the midst of the madness, Saffron is a lovely beacon of sanity, though it does seem odd that after all these years she is still mortified by her mother’s wanton excesses. Edina is against the marriage until she realizes the boyfriend’s parents are a famous and wildly wealthy couple: “These people are so megaconglomerate, one small withdrawal and Switzerland goes Third World.”

Edina and Patsy also go to a French ski resort for a slapdash vacation that consists mainly of more drinking. Patsy endlessly rides the lift, but Edina actually attempts to ski. On the brink of a cliff, she has a near-death experience and a heavenly vision appears to her: ‘60s pop star Marianne Faithfull, looking pretty heavenly indeed.

Even people who’ve never seen “Absolutely Fabulous” have probably seen shows influenced by it. The relationship of Cybill Shepherd and her female pal on CBS’ “Cybill” is clearly a rip-off of Edina and Patsy. Fox tried its own imitation earlier this season, “Lush Life,” but that bomb was dropped after only a few airings. Saunders and Lumley still hold the patent.

Much of Edina and Patsy’s behavior is, on the surface, deplorable or at least illegal. Their drugs of choice include pot and cocaine. They’re vain, childish and rude. What, then, makes them so curiously refreshing? Perhaps it’s that in a world of constant warnings, preachments and admonitions, a world overpopulated with moralizers and scolds, they do exactly and recklessly what they want.

They are heedless, hedonistic and unashamed, and if they have no marketable skills, they do have, in Noel Coward’s famous phrase, “a talent to amuse.” The girls are back in town, and the town is better for it.

* “Absolutely Fabulous: The Last Shout” can be seen Sunday at 8 p.m. on cable’s Comedy Central.