Opinion: High school, Muslims, and ratings, oh my...

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Tonight, on the CW, the much-hyped Aliens in America — a show about a small-town Wisconsin family saddled with a Pakistani Muslim exchange student — will premier, and whether it’s fresh or a flop, most people have already made up their minds about it.

I think I’ll wait until 8:30 tonight to make a final decision, but that’s not stopping me from Googling all the previews and clips I can, so I’m armed with my own opinion before I ever turn on the TV.

Given the competition, I wouldn’t put it past the CW to go for curiosity over quality. ABC still boasts veteran shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives, while newcomer Pushing Daisies is racking up the critical accolades. NBC, soaring on the wings of Heroes, is milking the sci-fi cash cow for all it’s worth, with a high-tech Monday lineup and amped-up publicity for Bionic Woman. The CW’s main draw Gossip Girl, while it’s generating major buzz, follows myriad dramas about pampered high school students, and the supernatural draw of Reaper is unlikely to make a dent in NBC’s enthusiastically over-the-top lineup. (Several CW affiliates, including KTLA in Los Angeles, are owned by Tribune Company, the parent of the L.A. Times.)

The truth is, comedies involving such racy topics as Muslims (gasp!) generally fall flat, mainly because they’ve invested much in the novelty factor and little in character development or dialogue. The Canadian series Little Mosque on the Prairie suffered from that very affliction: While the pilot brought in 2.1 million viewers, it quickly dropped off to an average of 1.2 million per episode. Don’t get me wrong — I enjoy watching Americans display their cultural ignorance as much as the next American, but you can find that theme in just about every other sitcom on the face of the earth.

Perhaps because my parents were immigrants, I’m inherently wary of shows that draw comedic inspiration from cultural mishaps. Invariably, the foreign culture is feebly offered up to the American characters — who, in their endearing ignorance, humorously maul it in the name of cultural acceptance. That always gets a lot of laughs.

I’ll reserve judgment until this evening. Although to be completely honest, I’ll probably just grab snippets of the show in the ad breaks during Heroes.