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NO, EVERYBODY HATES THE CW

I really don’t think that there was anyone that actually “hated” Everyone Hates Chris. It is a very funny, very endearing show that is more a victim of indifference caused by the ever-always shifting schedule of the blasted CW. Sometimes I would see it on a Friday, then I would see an episode from three years ago on a Sunday afternoon. I threw my hands up to Heaven and decided to just buy the DVD seasons until it would be inevitably canceled. And this was a great plan, with the exception of one flaw: I only bought season one, forgetting to purchase the others.

Thusly, I have only seen one full season of Chris—the first one—and a few episodes here and there of the others. So, going into this, the final season (season four, I think), I am predictably lost and a bit shocked at how much the characters have grown and aged. It’s like visiting the son that you abandoned twelve years ago after a rather nasty fight with his overbearing shrew of a mother, if I may use an episode from my own imagined, Tennessee Williams-esque life for comparison.

This final season finds Chris a ninth-grader, no longer the only black kid at his school. Nope, now he’s just a plain ol’ nerd. Most of the episodes follow his female foibles, with dates from the girl next door to the school ugly ducking, with little bits about hiding weed from the ‘rents, working at Doc’s bodega, snitchin’ and getting his first car, very rarely with any of it working out for the ne’er-do-well Chris.

The final episode though, wherein Chris takes the GED, almost does it’s damnedest to ruin the legacy of the show with an excruciatingly ill-advised attempt at a “last episode of The Sopranos”-style parody ending. You like these characters and, especially, you like Chris and want him to see him succeed and, well, go on to become the Chris Rock we all know and love, so, at that last moment, when the GED results come back and the screen goes to black, you want to kick your TV in repeatedly, screaming one horrific curse after another. Why would you do that to your fans, guys? Why the betrayal?

Either way, in addition to the 22 episodes you’ve also got numerous “webisodes”, commentaries, gag reels, cast panel Q and As, deleted scenes and such. Most of it worth your time, especially if you’re a fan, and, really, you should be.

It really is a shame such a high-quality sitcom such as Everyone Hates Chris has to fade into cathode oblivion, especially when it had nowhere and no-how worn out it’s welcome! I guarantee that if a more “stable” network had picked this up, it’ll still be on the air today. Fox, I’m looking at you…but, I guess hindsight and all that. Everyone will miss you, Chris.

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