No, the ironically named EVERYBODY LOVES CHRIS is only going to make Chris Rock fans love him even more, and it should further raise UPN's profile as a channel willing to take chances on different kinds of sitcoms. (Sure, they also have the misfires, like the show about Abe Lincoln's butler or the one that put homeboys in outer space, but for the most part...)

EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS is like the reverse-image of the animated show that Howard Stern has been talking about for years, HOWARD STERN: THE HIGH SCHOOL YEARS. He'll no doubt claim that Rock ripped off the concept here, but I do know that that show, if it makes it to air, now has a lot to live up to. Because this one is pretty excellent. EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS (I worry about what this title will do for subjects of future e-mails I might get from FAMILY GUY boosters) makes it tough for me to stand firm on my decision that Jason Lee's new NBC show is the funniest new show of the upcoming Fall TV season. Because this one is pretty damned hilarious in its own right. And even better, it finally returns an entertaining show to the 8 PM Thursday slot, a time that has been in need of something funny since FRIENDS in 2000 (yes, I know that FRIENDS was on until 2003).

Before we get into the pilot itself, one comment about UPN's approach for the coming season... yes, UPN might have a decent-sized female audience because of shows like EVE, but changing the slogan of the entire network (and I use that word loosely here) to "Where the girls are" is maybe one of the worst mini-net ideas I've heard since WB used to make their receptionists answer the phones by saying "Dubba-dubba-double-u-b." Way to turn off half your audience. You know how guys are--it's like they say, tell a girl a car's meant for a guy, she'll still check it out. but tell a guy it's meant for a girl, and he'll avoid it even more than audiences avoided Rock's movie BAD COMPANY. Not a good approach.

EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS features Chris Rock doing the "Daniel Stern on THE WONDER YEARS" narration, taking us along on this look back at his childhood. The show opens in Brooklyn in 1982. "The year I turned 13," intones Rock as the show opens. Now, Rock's delivery alone is enough to keep me laughing, so as long as the show features passingly funny visuals to go along with his voice-over, I can't see that I wouldn't like it. And luckily, it does much more than even that.

Chris's teenage years don't start the way he imagined (in a funny fantasy sequence). Instead, Chris and his family (younger-but-taller brother and the youngest child, his sister), and hard-working, bickering parents, leave the projects, but not necessarily for something better, as far as Chris's life turns out.

Now, especially since this is UPN and some of their comedy is a bit, shall we be kind and say, broad, but I half-expected Chris's parents to be a stereotype of hard-working, put-upon, ball-busting black parents. Chris's dad Julius is hard, and extremely tight with their barely existent money (he keeps baloney on hand in case the kids get hungry, and doesn't see why they'd need to spend money at McDonald's when they could eat that), but he's also a hard-working, solid dad as played by Terry Crews. A lot of little bits from Rock's stand-up act are worked into the show, like his dad's ability to assign a monetary value to everything, down to one spare rib. I have no doubt that we'll see a Robitussin episode at some point.

The character who plays Rock as a kid, Tyler Williams, is wide-eyed and precocious, but he also seems very real, and doesn't over-act like a lot of kids doing comedy.

The show has a lot of short little flashback sequences, all of which are really funny, but would lose a lot if I explain them here. Instead, I'll skip ahead to Chris at school. His new school is in an Italian-American neighborhood, and he has an as-expected hard time as the only black kid at his school. He also has to contend with a cute girl next door who is actually drawn to his much smoother (and taller) 10-year-old brother.

I watched the pilot twice, to confirm what I felt the first time--as funny as Rock's voiceoer is, the show itself is what really makes it work. The writing is clever, the acting solid, the humor not too broad... and with the addition of Rock's narration, it's Solid Gold, to reference another UPN show.

It can't really be that there will be more than a couple quality shows on this coming season, can it? Because from everything I've seen so far, it sure looks that way.

Of course, I haven't reviewed UPN'S SEX, LIES AND SECRETS yet...

Next Time: UPN's SEX, LIES AND SECRETS