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For cult-show junkies who despair of continually justifying their addiction to something called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, imagine explaining getting hooked on Witchblade.

Granted, this new TNT series (Tuesdays, 9 pm/ET) is nowhere near Buffy's league, especially when it comes to wit and wisdom, but as a stylized supernatural action thriller it does fill a void left by the deprogramming of La Femme Nikita and the grisly demise of Xena: Warrior Princess.

Proudly joining a take-no-prisoners sisterhood of bone-crunching do-gooders, Sara Pezzini (Yancy Butler, of the statuesque frame and the piercing gaze) is an intense New York City detective whom her friends call Pez. While she may qualify as eye candy, she's a jawbreaker (among other extremities) of the first order.

Sara's tough-chick act has only intensified since she came into contact with a mystical bracelet. When triggered by confronting evil, it mutates into an iron-plated, bullet-deflecting glove that frequently spouts a bodacious sword. (We'll leave the phallic implications for another discussion.)

As Sara, Butler glowers, wisecracks and lays waste with aplomb, but unlike Buffy, she's pretty much stranded in a poorly cast ensemble of glum Euro-trash overseers and generic precinct buddies. As her inexperienced new partner - her first was killed and returns as an annoying, mumbling, too-hip-for-the-cosmos ghost - David Chokachi can't escape his origins as an ex-Baywatch lightweight desperately trying to act tough.

Based on a comic-book series, Witchblade risks getting lost in its wildly mythic ambitions. As we're told, often at great length, Sara is part of a bloodline of warriors through history, most famously including Joan of Arc. I'm not kidding. This show never kids.

And yet it does entertain, in a dark and jittery manner, as skeptical Sara plunges into chic, decadent underworlds to solve violent and kinky crimes that invariably connect with her strange destiny. The action sequences, choppily edited and often slowed down for Matrix-like effect, are as startling, confusing and perversely intriguing as the show itself.

While not quite cutting edge, Witchblade is more often sharp than dull.