TAKE 5: UPN BRINGS SCI-FI TO THURSDAYS.

Byline: Keith Marder Daily News Television Writer

MTV meets the Sci-Fi Channel in what the UPN Network is calling a counter-programming move.

UPN will add Thursday night to its schedule during a yet-to-be-determined date during the second half of the season, in the continuing race to become the fifth network to broadcast seven nights of prime-time programming.

So, in an effort to survive on a night dominated by ``Seinfeld'' and ``Friends,'' UPN will add a science-fiction movie night to bring its total nights of programming to four. But, this isn't just any science-fiction movie franchise. ``We will bring a sexy rock 'n' roll sensibility to science fiction,'' UPN President of Entertainment Mike Sullivan said Wednesday at the kickoff of the Television Critics' Association Summer Press Tour here.

UPN is working on the theory that the only way to attract viewers on Thursdays is to entice ones who are not predisposed to upscale urban comedies about white people.

``We look at it as a counter-programming opportunity,'' Sullivan said. ``Whenever you are a new network, you are always going up against something dominant.''

Sullivan said that the movies will not be limited to creepy outer-space flicks. They will be defined as ``imaginative fiction.''

Garlic mashed potatoes with your pilot?: Rosa Blasi, one of the stars of the UPN comedy ``Hitz,'' apparently hasn't been spoiled by her success.

Blasi will star, alongside Andrew Dice Clay and Claude Brooks, in the parody of the record industry that will debut in the fall. But she will continue to wait tables at Billboard Live in West Hollywood until July 17, six days before the show goes into production.

``Why would I stop?'' she said. ``What would I do? Just sit around and wait for the series to start?''

Not that she likes taking orders, being treated like a servant and bringing back food to be reheated, either.

``I hate being a waitress,'' she said. ``I'm being punished. It's like I'm wearing a T-shirt that says `I'm leaving soon,' because I have had the worst customers, the rudest people lately. They are just evil.''

The rest of the close-knit wait staff at the trendy club has taken some good-natured jabs at the restaurant's first graduate into Hollywood.

``If I do something wrong,'' she said, ``they go, `Ooooh, Miss Movie Star. Miss TV Star.' Some people give me their head shots and ask me to take them to the casting director.''