In fall 2008, the The CW moved Everybody Hates Chris and The Game to the Friday night death slot. The fourth season of the series premiered Friday, October 3, 2008, at 8:00PM Eastern/7:00PM Central. On May 21, 2009, The CW announced that it had cancelled Everybody Hates Chris. Prior to this, executive producer Chris Rock announced that the end of season 4 matched up with his own past — dropping out of high school to become a comedian — and that it was time to end the show.

The show revolves around the everyday life of Chris, who is a 13-year-old seventh grade student in the series' first episode. Chris is one of the few "normal" characters on the show, surrounded by a collection of eccentric characters that, in his point of view, act as if they dislike him. Chris lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, a low-income community and attends an all-white school in fictional Brooklyn Beach, where students and teachers alike pick on him. If events progress favorably for Chris throughout an episode, they will almost certainly backfire on him by the end. Likewise, if a situation isn't going Chris' way, it always manages to get even worse for him, whether or not he tries to change the course of events.

The guest characters on the show all seem to detest Chris for some unknown reason. In fact, Chris Rock, made a guest appearance as the guidance counselor, Mr. Abbott, who also disliked Chris and unhelpfully focused on how Chris was in trouble academically. Even the warmest of guest characters have some inexplicable dislike of Chris, such as one character named Kris (Richard Lewis), who was injured and in the hospital.

In the third season finale, Chris graduates from Corleone Junior High School, but his joy is cut short when his best friend Greg moves to a new school—Chris quickly hatches a plan to go to Greg's high school. Greg ends up having to go to Chris' high school due to poor grades.

There are several references to The Godfather. Chris' junior high school is named Corleone, which is named after Don Vito Corleone and the Corleone family. Chris' high school is named Tattaglia, another one of the five families. Also, Tattaglia's mascot is The Sleeping Fishes. Finally, Tattaglia's rival is Clemenza high school, one of Don Corleone's caporegime.

The fourth and final season concluded with a half-hour series finale titled "Everybody Hates the G.E.D.", which focused on Chris getting his G.E.D. after he decides to drop out of school due to having to repeat the tenth grade for constantly being late 30 times. His parents oppose at first, but they later decide to support and love him regardless. The final episode was a spoof of The Sopranos's series finale. The entire Rock family were in a diner with Chris's G.E.D results, and as soon they were going to announce his results, the screen goes black. In the series finale of The Sopranos, the screen also goes black at the end of the episode.

Reviews for the show are positive.

The American Film Institute selected Everybody Hates Chris as one of the best 10 television series of 2007, stating that the show "provides a very real look at growing up in America — a challenge that demands a discussion of race and class often absent from television today."

Everybody Hates Chris won an NAACP Image Award for its writing in 2008. It has also been nominated for Golden Globe and Emmy Awards.

In December 2008, Entertainment Weekly lists the Kwanzaa episode from this show as seventh on the magazine's "Must List: 10 Holiday Things We Love."