Tonight marks the fourth season finale of Everybody Hates Chris. What are the chances that the CW sitcom will return for year five?
Everybody Hates Chris is inspired by the teenage experiences of Chris Rock and narrated by the comedian. The sitcom follows Chris (Tyler James Williams), an average kid who’s surrounded by a bunch of crazy characters who, from his point of view, don’t seem to like him very much. Others in the cast include Vincent Martella, Terry Crews, Tequan Richmond, Tichina Arnold, Imani Hakim, Jacqueline Mazarella, Travis T. Flory, Kevontay Jackson, Ernest Thomas, Jeris Poindexter, Jackee Harry, Michael Estime, Antonio Fargas, Blake Hightower, and Todd Bridges.
The sitcom began on the old UPN network in September 2005. In year one, the sitcom averaged 4.3 million viewers and a 1.7/5 rating/share of the coveted 18-49 demographic. While that may not sound like much, it was one of the network’s most successful shows, just a few steps below America’s Next Top Model.
In Chris’ sophomore year, its first on the CW network, viewership dropped to 2.7 million and a 1.1/3 in the demo. That was a significant hit, placing it just about soon-to-be cancelled Veronica Mars.
During the 2008 – 2009 season, when the industry was brought to a standstill by the writers strike, Chris was one of the few shows that completed its entire 22 episode season in advance. Despite being one of the few shows to produce a full 22 episode season, the ratings were worse. Viewership dropped to an average of 2.33 million and just a .8 rating.
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When the show was renewed last season, CW President Dawn Ostroff, said that Chris had “consistently proven itself to be one of the best comedies on television… This is a show we want viewers to associate with the CW.”
That was a nice sentiment but the network sent the sitcom to a little-watched Friday night timeslot. To no surprise, viewership dropped even lower, to an average of 1.69 million viewers and a 0.6/2 rating/share.
So, viewership has dropped significantly in the past couple years and the network is now targeting its programming almost exclusively towards young women. The CW is essentially giving up on sitcoms and will have only 10 hours of primetime to fill next season. Unlike fellow “on the bubble” sitcom The Game, Chris already has 88 episodes which is just enough for syndication.
Rock decided to make it even easier for the programming execs by making the season finale a fitting end to the series. In the episode, Chris is faced with repeating the 10th grade so he decides to drop out and take the G.E.D. test instead. Williams says, “An envelope arrives (with his test results), but before we find out the results, we fade to black. If it ends here, we ended it the right way.”
Will Chris be back next season? It looks very doubtful but we’ll know for sure on May 21st when the network holds its advertiser upfront presentation.
What do you think? Should the sitcom come back or is it time to go?
Image courtesy CW.
PLEASE BRING SEASON 5 ON THE AIR….THIS SHOW IS AWESOME, AND TOTALLY FUNNY.
It should be brought back. I love the show and I know a bunch of people who equally love it and appreciate it. The show is one of the best
I LOVE THE SHOW, Y IS IT THAT EVERYTIME A GOOD BLACK SHOW HITS THE AIR YALL WANNA TAKE IT OFF N KILL THE SHOW?….. THATS ********!!
season 5 yea
i love everybody hates chris… season 5 plz
damn they need to bring this show back i watched this every night the least we should get is what the test results was……..am i right???
ye i know i loved every body hates chris but it was based on chris rocks teenhood and thats how he became a comedian by failing and droping out of highschool if they did bring it back it would have to be his actual live shows
Bring it back. Even now I watch the reruns on Fox.
It deserves to go out with a fitting finale!
plz bring us a season 5 screw ratngs
I WISH SEASON 5 WAS ON.THEY SHOULD OF MADE SEASON 5
I Love the show and i watchies everday in german…please bring the season 5 back!
Bring back this show. Now all I can watch of this show is on Nick at Nite really late at night.
pls bring back the
season five comedy of every body hates chris.i so much luv the
comedy.
Please bring back everbody hate Chris season 5. This is my best comedy show and all the actors are so professional and original.
please bring back the show.julius is funny.show season five that’s 00.50 cents worth of bread thats 86 cents worth of chicken.the episode that was funny was when julius was cleaning the house and he was wearing white clothes.
please bring season 5 on everybody hates chris.i always watched that show every friday night.when the pilot came out i went nuts. How is it possible that the view dropped down when it was season 4. my favorite character is julius, that’s # cents worth of spilled milk on the table .somebody gone dirnk this milk. all the characters from julius drew rochelle mr.omar doc,greg,caruso,tasha,chris,tonya,jerome,risky,kill moves, and munk are good actors.especially julius.the episode was funny when tasha was choking chris.she’s pretty.bring back the showwwwwwwww.