Chris Rock, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., July 21

Like a handsome prince, Chris Rock rescued TV critics from the state of profound deathlike sleep at Summer TV Press Tour 2005 in the Land of Television.

Somnambulant critics, fallen under the curse of evasive cable executives and evil Viacom spin fairies, wondered sleepily Thursday how involved Rock would be going forward on UPN's new comedy series "Everybody Hates Chris."

Rock does the voiceover on and is executive producer of the show, which is loosely based on his childhood in the tough Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Before falling into their swoon, critics had heard that the show was developed for Fox but that Fox suits had let expire the network's option on the project because they worried Rock would have little to do with the series, week in and week out.

(You perhaps thought networks greenlit a series based on whether it was really good. That's so sweet -- don't ever change.)

"I've been working for a while -- I don't think I've ever done anything and walked out," Rock proclaimed.

"There is no evidence of that. My name's Rock, not Chappelle."

Critics, though sleepwalking, got the reference to Dave Chappelle. He's the other skinny black comic, who, after being handed a purse of $50 million to do a third season of his sketch comedy show for Comedy Central (which, like UPN, is a hamlet in the Kingdom of Viacom), was mysteriously turned into a Weirdsmobile and fled the show, leaving the handsome prince of Comedy Central, Doug Herzog, scratching his head and minus his brightest star.

Enchanted by Rock's zinger, critics laughed and yawned and stretched for the first time in the 10 days thus far of this year's summer get-together, otherwise known as the While We Were Sleeping Tour.

(Our sources say Fox passed on "Everybody Hates Chris" because it worried not about Rock's long-term commitment to the series but about the "backend" -- syndication and overseas sales -- viability of a single-camera, laugh-track-free, black-cast comedy.)

Perking up, the critics wondered what the heck the best new comedy of the upcoming TV season was doing on a little network like UPN instead of, say, CBS -- which also is ruled by the king of Viacom's Slower Growth Networks, His Royal Highness Leslie Moonves.