Why anyone would watch the CW on purpose is beyond me. But since our television now only gets Fox affiliates or CW affiliates, our choices are slightly limited (should probably invest in an antennae if we’re going to catch American Gladiators). We had just watched the Redskins wipe the floor with the Cowboys and were waiting around for “The Simpsons” to start so we decided to give “Aliens in America” a try.

The idea of an American family sitcom starring a Muslim character sounds absolutely brilliant. On paper. In practice, “Aliens in America” leaves quite a lot to desire. Here’s the set up. Justin Tolchuck is a typically awkward and shy 16-year-old high school boy with few friends and a dismal social life. Of course, by contrast, his younger sister Claire is quite popular and confident. To help break her son out of his shell, Franny, the mom, signs up as a host family for the foreign exchange program. Enter Raja, a 16-year-old Muslim boy from Pakistan. By the mere fact that he’s foreign, Muslim, and apparently the only non-white student in school, Raja is as much of an outcast as Justin. The two become fast friends and hilarity ensues. Only it doesn’t. It’s not funny. It’s not thought provoking. It’s not very good at all. Oh yeah, there’s a father in there somewhere.

I suppose my expectations were a bit too high. This show is the first of its kind and comes at a time when we need a broader cultural understanding of the Muslim world. There’s a real opportunity to explore diversity and to poke fun at how insane some of our popular perceptions of the Muslim world are. Instead, the CW plays it safe. Instead of a show that questions and challenges our perceptions, we get a cookie cutter sitcom about a “typical” suburban family and all of their quirks and hypocrisies with Raja functioning as little more than the group conscious. In fact, if you replaced him with Jiminy Cricket, I doubt many viewers would know the difference. Raja was hardly in the episode we saw, only appearing to give a little advice here and there, used more as a token than a starring role. It’s a great shame, too, because Adhir Kalyan who portrays Raja is a welcome change to an otherwise homogeneous and boring mix of characters we’ve all seen before.

Granted, this may have been just one episode. Other episodes may indeed feature Raja more prominently. And if it were actually funny, I might wait around a few more episodes to see if it picks up. It’s not uncomfortable funny like HBO’s “Extras.” It’s not balls out funny like “Dave Chapelle.” It’s not even situational funny like “Seinfeld” (which I can’t fucking stand so you might want to take all of my tele reviews with many grains of salt). It’s safe. And dull. And absolutely boring. And not worth your time at all.

Oh, and it rates rather low on the Jam Scale because Raja seems to be the only minority in the entire town.

[Via CW]

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 1:57 pm and is filed under Jam Scale Reviews, Tele, Dumb Ass, Diversity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.