Aliens in America Review

Let’s get back in the swing of the blog with a fresh review. Also added today is my supplement to Phallic’s Moonlight review. That was inserted in a way that makes some chronological sense. Check it out if you’re interested.


Today we take a look at ALIENS IN AMERICA. Premiering tonight on The CW, Aliens is a new single-camera half-hour sitcom. The premise of this show is that a geeky Midwestern kid’s parents decide to import a foreign exchange student to befriend him and make him more popular. To their horror they get a traditional Muslim from Pakistan instead of a hunky WASP. It stars a sweet, if questionably talented, Dan Byrd as awkward Justin Tolchuk.
This show is pretty innocuous. It has some funny moments, and at times it’s quite smart. While I think the show itself will be decent, I didn’t necessarily enjoy the pilot on its own merits. The pacing was inconsistent and I didn’t feel like it had found its voice or tone yet. There were many sentimental scenes; but there are also quite a few crude jokes, too. Both worked individually, they just didn’t blend well together. There is a subplot about Justin’s sister that generates some fantastic comedy. Both Phallic and I felt that an early scene where school bullies tell Justin what they would do to Claire if she was their sister was the funniest thing in the pilot. On the other side of the spectrum, the scenes where we get emotional with these characters are also well done, even if slightly out of place. Raja is just so unrealistically perfect, with the most obviously heart-tugging of all back stories that he floats angelically on a different plane than these other people. For a show that’s trying to make the point that despite our cultural differences we are all the same, that isn’t a good thing.
Also worth noting is that the father has been recast here. Having seen the original pilot, I don’t understand this move at all. The new father is Scott Patterson from Gilmore Girls. I understand The CW’s impulse to keep this guy with their network after the end of that show. He probably has a certain fan base that will be really excited about this move. However, Patterson isn’t at all suitable for this role as written. In the pilot the dad is an older version of the son. He’s a gawky, nerdy Wisconsin accountant type. The dad’s main personality feature is that he’s obsessed with supplementing his income with stupid schemes. I’m not sure what CW execs were thinking on this one.

Verdict: This showed some definite promise from the pilot. In they can figure out what they want this show to be and keep it simple, this could be one of the better family-friendly comedies on TV. As far as the show’s future goes, I’m not too sure. With a midseason replacement in the half hour format already in the can at The CW (Eight Days a Week), Aliens will have to perform strongly in the middle of 3 shows that generate no common audience (all from the former UPN). Even if it makes it past the first season, you then have the problem of figuring out how to keep the exchange around an extra year to further the plot.

Would I Watch It? Too early to tell.