Humor is no longer alien post-post-9/11

In the winning "Aliens in America," premiering tonight on the CW, a small-town Wisconsin family decides to host an exchange student in an attempt to "guarantee" a friend for its socially inept teenage son, Justin (Dan Byrd). (Writing that, I suddenly feel I should explain that it is not a reality show.) Expecting a version of the tall, blond überteen pictured on the brochure proffered by Justin's guidance counselor, the family is surprised (to say the least) to meet instead Raja Musharaff (Adhir Kalyan), who in the middle of the Chippewa Falls Airport sets down his bags, raises his hands to heaven and cries, "Thank you, Allah, for the Tolchucks!"

Albeit at bottom a standard "strange-neighbors" comedy, "Aliens in America" is a hopeful sign that we may finally be emerging pop-culturally into the post-post-9/11 age -- or, at any rate, a post-"24" age, in which we are ready to find a little humor in the Clash of Civilizations, rather than just wanting to bathe in bloody fantasies of prophylactic superspies. Created by David Guarascio and Moses Port ("Just Shoot Me!"), the show is consistently clever and lively, well played and directed, its corners filled with nice throwaway lines and small visual jokes.

"Raja, you are so different from us -- how does that feel?" asks a teacher who has just introduced him to her class as "a Pakistani who practices Muslimism." And when he replies that he doesn't understand the question, she continues: "How does everyone else feel about Raja and his differences?"

"I guess I feel angry because his people blew up the buildings in New York," says one girl to approving noises. In the hall, someone yells, "Apu, where's my Slushie?"

Mother Franny Tolchuck (Amy Pietz, from "Caroline in the City," nicely mixing suspicion with politeness) at first plots to send him back ("If I ordered a coffee maker and I got a toaster, I'd return that"). Of course, Raja appreciates his new family more than its members do each other, and he helps out in a way that is as inexplicable to them as his praying to Mecca. He clears the table and does the dishes and actually listens to what other people have to say, even when it's nonsense. Soon, despite himself, Justin -- whose usual response to stress is not to pray but to "eat a brownie or buy a CD" -- finds himself telling Raja "stuff I wouldn't even tell the guys from chorus." They bond.