“Everybody Hates Chris” (7 p.m., UPN) returns with a brand new episode, one that reaffirms this show’s position as one of the best comedies of the year.

Chris covets a leather jacket, a 1983 fashion statement that threatens to set the family back $99. We discover quickly that Chris’s dad, Julius (Terry Crews), considers an “allowance” to be a foreign concept, a position he explains in a three-hour lecture, telling Chris just how lucky he is that he “allows” him to eat food, sleep in a warm bed, etc.

Chris’s efforts to score a part-time job prove fruitless, so Julius, a newspaper delivery truck driver, “hires” him to help out on his 3 a.m. shift.

This introduces Chris to a mysterious world of blue-collar esprit de corps, blue humor, grueling work and night-shift exhaustion. It also shows him a looser side to Julius that he had never imagined. Being with his father is special, but doing it in the middle of the night, when mere kids are tucked in bed, makes it magical.

Far too many TV comedies depict children and teens as pint-sized adults, wisecracking know-it-alls with the jaded world view of standup comedians. That’s why the show’s creator, Chris Rock, provides his brand of standup as narrator, not performer. “Chris” does a wonderful job of hewing to simple basic truths: that children and adults see the world through very different eyes, and that children often look on adults and their world with a combination of envy and trepidation.

Heartwarming but never cloying, this father-son “bonding” episode stops just short of being “very special.” And it’s Julius’s legendary frugality that provides the brakes. When he presents Chris with $25 for his evening of toil, he tells him “I didn’t have $25 until I turned 30. And I still have two of them!”

Other highlights

¢ A filmmaker uses stock footage, home movies and interviews to mourn his long-dead brother and explore the nature of death, loss and grief in the short film “Phantom Limb” (6:30 p.m., Cinemax).

¢ Tom Bergeron hosts “Dancing with the Stars” (7 p.m., ABC).

¢ A young man’s body is discovered in his girlfriend’s garage on “CSI” (8 p.m., CBS).

¢ Hot dog competition on “My Name is Earl” (8 p.m., NBC).

¢ Kaitlin returns, full of sass on “The O.C.” (8 p.m.).

¢ Suzanne wants a new baby, too, on “Crumbs” (8:30 p.m., ABC).

¢ A therapist is last spotted in a parking garage on “Without a Trace” (9 p.m., CBS).

¢ Sam’s son bolts to find his dad on “ER” (9 p.m., NBC).

¢ Scheduled on “Primetime” (9 p.m., ABC): a victim of molestation speaks out; a violent predator.

¢ “They Started on Soaps 5” (10 p.m., Soapnet) looks at A-List talent whose careers began in the afternoon.