Have you kept up with CW's ...
Question: Have you kept up with CW's
Aliens in America and
Everybody Hates Chris this season? Wonky scheduling and strike delays have made a mess of things, and the CW seems to have forgotten these shows exist. (Two weeks ago, a new episode of
Aliens in America was billed as a repeat in all the TV listings I checked.) I ask because I consider these to be two of the best comedies on television and, deceptively, among the boldest. Here are two wholesome, light-hearted shows dealing intelligently with race with abundant humor and without ever preaching.
Chris has had some drop-off in quality since its fantastic first season, but
Aliens is on a roll and seems to get zero promotion from the network or from TV critics. A sitcom about Muslim-American relations could have been a crass disaster, but it has grown into something I think everyone should watch. And it continues to push the envelope with warmth instead of cynicism. Several weeks ago, the Tolchuks befriended a misunderstood registered sex offender who turned out to be a racist. Its low ratings all but guaranteed its cancellation, but it's a show I think people should be talking about. Have you been watching, or has it fallen through the cracks of a busy TV critic's schedule?
Answer: To be perfectly honest, "fallen through the cracks" is the most accurate way to describe it. The CW sent out a handful of
Aliens episodes a while back, and I watched them to reacquaint myself with the show. They failed to blow me away, sorry to say. And I try to look in on
Chris several times a season. But once the shows moved to Sundays, they pretty much fell off my radar, given the volume of other shows I'm trying to keep up with. And also to be honest, the numbers were so pitiful, especially for
Aliens, that it just never became a priority, especially as I felt the show didn't quite live up to the promise of its pilot, so it wasn't going to be a show I was going to necessarily champion. I'm sorry about all of this, because I wish network TV would put more muscle behind family comedies, and these are two of the better ones, with refreshingly distinctive points of view. I wish the CW had tried to keep the
Chris-Aliens combo intact on Fridays next season, but comedy is obviously not a priority for the network right now, and we should probably be grateful that
Chris made the cut this year.
