BET's first sitcom

NEW YORK - Many college students see the diploma that awaits them as their ticket to success.

For Scottie, a perennial undergrad who's having too much fun to be concerned with success, that diploma would be more like his eviction notice.

Scottie is the happy-go-lucky hero of

Somebodies

, a comedy series premiering on cable's BET at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Somebodies

is notable in several ways.

It's billed as the first scripted series in BET's 28-year history.

With mostly black characters (notable enough for TV comedies and dramas), it has a funny, fresh angle on student life that should ring true for anyone who ever faced adulthood with let's-don't-be-too-hasty misgivings.

This is Scottie's brand of aversion. He's a partygoing, churchgoing, easygoing guy whose unhurried journey of self-discovery is informed by kooky people with conflicting advice on the route he should take. They include his saucy ex-girlfriend and his four razzing housemates ("I got sperm that's gonna finish college before you do!").

There's a fire-and-brimstone preacher, various eccentric family members, and new acquaintances such as Epitome, the outspoken founder of a campus black-pride group whose acronym, B.O.N.C.E.R.S., is pronounced "bonkers."

When Scottie drops by his college counselor's office hoping to change his major again, she rips into him for never finishing anything he starts. Her warning for where this could lead escalates into a rant that smacks of an updated "Ya Got Trouble" from

The Music Man

:

"Government assistance! Welfare! Rims that cost more than the car! Thirty-three-year-old grandparents! Sneaking chicken into the movie theater! Red Kool-Aid stains around the baby's mouth!"

Scottie's reaction? A mix of bemusement and sheepish acknowledgment that, maybe, there's a nugget of truth in what she says.

One other thing sets

Somebodies

apart: Hadjii, the mono-monikered whiz who created it, wrote all 10 half-hours, directed several, serves as an executive producer, stars as Scottie - and did it all not in Hollywood or New York, but in cozy Athens, Ga., where he attended the University of Georgia, then, after graduation, made his home.

He also made Athens the home for

Somebodies

, which was filmed there this summer.

It's been a project long in the works for Hadjii, 32. It began years ago with a screenwriting class, where he showed his professor, Nate Kohn, a spec script he had written for

Seinfeld

. Impressed, Kohn encouraged him to write about his own experiences as a black man and native Southerner (he was born and raised in the coastal Georgia city of Brunswick).

A film industry veteran, Kohn became Hadjii's mentor, then his producer. Meanwhile, Hadjii was developing his characters and story, while refining a comedic voice that has the laser incisiveness of Chris Rock and the knowing graciousness of Garrison Keillor. (The clownish stereotypes of Tyler Perry? No comparison.)

"I want to be funny, but I don't want to be a joke," Hadjii said in a recent interview, and then, enlarging on his theme, shifted into second person. "You want to talk about things that are relevant and have an impact. You want to deal with things that are important. You want to have heart."

Somebodies

was first envisioned as a TV series. But as an interim step, a feature-film version (and de facto TV pilot) was shot in 2004, with Hadjii starring and directing from his script. In 2006, it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The series deal with BET resulted.

Now Hadjii wonders if a natural progression will draw a white audience and other crossover viewers to sample his series. Even luring older blacks could be a challenge, he said with a laugh. "They don't really fancy BET much. They just look at it as the boogie-woogie channel.

"But I think it's a channel that

should

be discovered," he said, "and it would be nice to play a part in that. It's my own little way of trying."