Just two months ago, my friends and I bemoaned the cringe-worthy start to TNT's "Saving Grace," a police drama set in Oklahoma City featuring Holly Hunter playing a very worldly Grace Hanadarko.

The writing was terrible. The Oklahoma metaphors unbearable.

My friends bailed on the series. They had seen enough, but I was a glutton for punishment -- and, now, here comes the kicker.

This show is good. Better than TNT's "The Closer," which is good in its own right. As good as "Dead Like Me," a show I basically revere given that Showtime was silly enough to pull it after two years.

Not only is the show the biggest hit on cable this year, there is talk of multiple Emmy nominations, including speculation that Hunter is a shoo-in for an Emmy.

So, what happened?

Well, it's simple. Episodes subsequent to the pilot were simply superior. Way better. The second was better than the first, the third better than the second, and creator Nancy Miller is riding a wave of momentum headed into the Season 1 finale on Sept. 17.

Originality doesn't hurt either, and this show is as quirky as they come. With endless references to Oklahoma's obsession with football, the newly hired black female police chief is so rabid an OU fan, she threatens to kick the ass of her Texas-loving detective every chance she gets. When somebody mentioned watching Bob Stoops on ESPN in last Monday's episode, she said, "Yeah, Stoops. I LOVE that guy."

Frankly, this show turned around when the original police chief was killed in the second episode and this woman was hired. She's a gem, and she reminds me a ton of the tough-talking Jasmine Guy from the aforementioned "Dead Like Me."

The secondary characters have developed well, including the one played by Kenny Johnson. Hunter's detective counterparts were so generic in the beginning; we're finally getting to see them breathe. Johnson plays a sensitive but fun-loving adulterous half-wit.

And Leon Rippy. If Hunter is worthy of an Emmy, so is this guy as Earl the tobacco-chewing angel. What I've loved about how Miller has maneuvered his character is that she has him involved with everyone even though nobody else can see him within the context of his angelicness.

What's turned off a lot of folks is the cussing, the drinking, the smoking and the sex. Grace is so loose, she gave pity sex to a co-worker whose cat just died.

However, if it was the writing and the plot that had you turning away, you officially have my permission to come back. Either the pilot was a massive aberration, or the writers took heed of many critics and pulled it together.

Either way, I'm hooked. And, what's best is that paired with Kyra Sedgwick's delightful "The Closer," TNT pretty much has the two best "quirky" police dramas happening right now.