The CW’s new fall comedy Aliens in America TV Show puts an exchange student from Pakistan in the heartland of America for comedy hijinks. Adhir Kalyan plays Raja. In real life he speaks with a South African accent and he is not even Muslim. Acting!

“I’m not Muslim and I don’t think it makes a different at all,” said Kalyan. “I like to believe I’ve been fairly diligent in researching Islam, about trying to find out as much about Pakistan as I could. The script is so rich in material and descriptions and insight into the character where I think that is first and foremost. Raja is a character who happens to be from Pakistan and who practices Islam in his life. Of course, I do feel I have a responsibility to the Muslim community to represent this character in a positive way and as accurately as I can.”

It wasn’t all book studying though. The world weary Kalyan has some secondhand experience. “I did live in London for a couple of years and was actually cast for the show out of there and sort of used that opportunity with such a large South Asian population to sort of go out and speak with people who were either first-generation British or actually did hail form the subcontinent.”

When Kalyan first came to America, his experiences were much better than Raja’s. “In truth, the only thing I found difficult to deal with coming to the States is the size of the portions of food. I mean, really, do we need portions that are that big? Africa doesn’t need bono. Africon doesn’t need Geldof. Africa needs a Denny’s grand slam breakfast. But on a serious note, I’ve been very fortunate coming out to Los Angeles. Unlike a lot of actors who come out to make a movie and try to carve out a career for themselves, I came here with something which opens a lot of doors for me. As a city itself, I really enjoy Los Angeles and have found American people to be nothing but hospitable and warm. I think as a result of the country’s politics, American people tend to take a lot of heat as people, which is sometimes unjust I feel. Since being here and being anywhere in the world, because I’ve managed to travel somewhat from Durban, South Africa, I think it’s about people you meet in your journey. I’ve been very blessed in both a professional and personal capacity to meet some wonderful people who share my vision in terms of what they would like to contribute to this industry.”

So that’s Adhir Kalyan. But if he’s playing an exchange student, won’t they send him back after a year? What about season two? “In truth, Raja is so incredibly smart. I mean, they are going to want to keep him at that school.”

The third tallest male lead on the TV series “Gilmore Girls,” Scott Patterson was born on September 11, 1958, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but was raised in New Jersey. Scott attended Rutgers University, studying comparative literature, but dropped out to play minor league baseball for the New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers and the Texas Rangers before he embarked on his acting career. He moved to New York and studied with Bobby Lewis and Sondra Lee at the Actor’s Studio. Scott made some guest appearances on “Will & Grace,” “Silk Stalkings” and “Seinfeld” and soon after he landed the role that would make him famous: as Luke Danes the loyal, brooding and rarely shaven diner owner on the television series “Gilmore Girls.” His movie credits include “Her Best Move,” “Highway 395″ and “Little Big League.”

A reliable supporting player specializing in slightly gritty and rough-cut characterizations, Scott Patterson spent several years biding his time in forgettable cinematic ventures such as Intent to Kill (1992) and Little Big League (1994), before achieving fame in a recurring role as Luke Danes, the diner owner and eventual suitor of Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) on the popular comedy drama series Gilmore Girls TV Show. After that series eventually went off the air, he subsequently transitioning to feature roles, such as that of an agent in the gore-filled slasher outing Saw IV (2007). In 2007, Patterson also landed a regular role on the prime-time sitcom Aliens in America — about a Midwestern family that unwittingly hosts a Pakistani Muslim exchange student in an attempt to find a friend for their unpopular son.

Aliens in America TV Show is one of the best new comedies on television. That may sound like hyperbole, since this is a story about its star, but it also happens to be true. While it’s also true that there are not an abundance of great new comedies this fall, Aliens would stand out no matter how strong the competition. It’s the story of Justin Tolchuk, a small town teenager who finds himself a hopeless social misfit at his high school. In an effort to “import” a friend for him, his mother signs up to house an exchange student.

That student, Raja, happens to be a Pakistani Muslim - an even bigger outsider in Justin’s small town, thus making him even more of an outcast. However, the two boys end up forming a strong friendship and what looked like a social disaster ends up being perhaps the best thing to happen to Justin. The show has a touch of Wonder Years, a bit of Freaks and Geeks and maybe even a little of the dearly departed Arrested Development. Any comedy that can somehow work 9/11 into a joke, and NOT have it be offensive - is onto something good.

Dan Byrd and Adhir Kalyan

It was some time ago that actor Dan Byrd was first cast as Justin Tolchuk. As far as he can remember, he was the first person cast on the series - which ultimately didn’t get picked up. Thinking the project was dead, as so often happens with television pilots, the actor was moving on to other things when he got the call that The CW - the new network formed out of the ashes of The WB and UPN, were picking up Aliens in America.

“The time we started shooting the pilot to the time we started shooting the actual TV series was almost exactly a year,” Byrd said. “There was at least six months of just assuming nothing was going to happen with it. It hadn’t really been put to rest officially, but I just assumed it wasn’t going any further. So it was a really nice surprise when they decided to pick it up for fall.”

This meant heading to Vancouver, Canada where the production is located. As many actors relocated to Canada will tell you, it creates a closer bond between the cast and crew. Nobody can really go back to their normal lives, because they’re not living at home. Instead they’re essentially stuck together in a foreign country (well, sort of, it is only Canada). Upon making the move, Byrd decided to let life mimic fiction by moving in with his co-star, Adhir Kalyan.

“You’re spending so much time together professionally and then you’re at home with this person too,” Byrd said. ” It’s a lot of face time we have with each other, but I think ultimately it’s helped us form a really strong bond that eventually will end up bleeding into what’s happening on screen.”

While Justin is an awkward teenager almost constantly under siege at school, Byrd says his experience wasn’t quite like that. In fact, he actually left high school to pursue actor just before his senior year. “I can definitely relate to lots of things that Justin has to go through,” Byrd said. “But my high school experience was a little stilted compared to this one.”

With Justin being a junior, Dan has been able to pick up where he left off a few years before. In a way, it’s allowing him to finish the high school experience on television. “There’s been a lot of living vicariously in this whole project,” Byrd said. “We’ve done a homecoming episode and there’s stuff that you think of immediately when you think of high school, and a lot of it I wasn’t able to experience - so it’s nice to be able to do that on some level.”

While Byrd is still young, he’s amassed an impressive list of credits even prior to his role on Aliens in America. As an actor with experience, he found some of the elements of Justin’s character to be uniquely challenging. “The biggest challenge for me is defining somebody who is not really definable at this point in his life. Justin is still kind of a shell of a person and not set in any way in particular. So there’s a balance in creating a character who has an identity, but who hasn’t really found it yet.”

Byrd also saw the nature of a being a regular on a TV series as a challenge. “The thing is, with a movie you get to see a beginning, a middle and an end. You can create the arc and you know what transitions this person is going through. You know where you start and where you end and you figure out how you get there in-between. But in a TV show you’re learning as you go along. A new episode comes and I find out something different about this character. So you have to be more fluid and open to whatever they throw at you.”

When we talked, Dan was shooting the twelfth episode of the season, but had only seen the first handful. “The scripts have been really consistently good and funny. It’s really great writing overall, so hopefully we’re doing it justice and everything on the page is coming off on screen too.” He did mention that his favorite episode that he’s seen so far was the fourth (regular) episode, “Homecoming.”

There was another project that Byrd was involved with that is just about as different from Aliens in America as it gets, and that’s the re-make of The Hills Have Eyes. Byrd was one of only a handful of characters in that movie that could possibly have found their way to a sequel, but he says they never talked to him about it. “I don’t think I knew they were making a sequel until I saw a preview for it on TV. I had no involvement whatsoever. I think it’s a completely different storyline about army guys that get sabotaged by all new mutants or what not. I don’t think they were going to continue the storyline with the family, I think that chapter is pretty much closed.”

With his mutant fighting days behind him, Byrd and the rest of the cast of Aliens in America are currently waiting to see if The CW will order a full season of the comedy. With decent ratings and lots of love from critics, its chances are looking better with each episode that airs.

Aliens in America TV Show centers on a geeky teenager named Justin Tolchuk (Dan Byrd) and Raja (Adhir Kalyan), the equally dorky Muslim foreign exchange student staying with Justin’s family. When I heard about the premise of this new CW show, without having seen any promos for the series, I assumed it was going to be a family drama meant to teach lots of lessons about racial/religious tolerance. I was wrong – kind of. For one thing, it’s a comedy, not a drama series and while it does definitely touch on racial and religious intolerance, the show is be doing it from a much lighter, comedic approach.

We’re introduced to Justin Tolchuk, a geeky 16-year-old who can’t seem to fit in at school no matter what he does. This year he thinks everything’s going to change now that he has his braces off. Unfortunately, junior year is looking just as grim as the previous years.

In an effort to help their son get friends through association, Justin’s parents agree to house a foreign exchange student. They’re expecting a good-looking, charismatic kid to show up and instead, they’re greeted by Raja. Raja is a Muslim kid from Pakistan who, under normal circumstances, would be a parent’s dream. He’s polite, hard-working and eager to learn about America. They consider sending him back but eventually, Raja grows on them and they decide to keep him.

So while Raja isn’t going to earn Justin any cool points, the two start to become friends as Justin begins to realize that this is probably the one person who isn’t going to mock or judge him for his dorky ways. I know the premise sounds corny but there’s enough humor throughout the show to make up for the cheesy life-lesson about tolerance. For example, Justin’s sister Claire (Lindsey Shaw), having developed into a hottie over the summer, is thrilled to learn that she’s been included on a list made by the senior guys naming the top ten most bangable girls in school. This is good news, though she does express some concern over whether or not her new social status will conflict with her softball practice. Priorities.

Justin’s parents also serve to add a bit of humor. Gary Tolchuk has a regular job but is always looking for new ways to make money – like breeding alpacas in the backyard. Meanwhile, Justin’s mom, Franny, dotes on her children and even quit the PTA to dedicate more of her time to helping Justin be normal. The thing is, Justin is normal. He’s an average-looking teenager who, due to the cruel politics of high school, just happens to be at the bottom of the food chain.

The first episode of Aliens in America Television Show is surprisingly funny and definitely worth watching. The characters are charming and I’m interested to see how the story unfolds as the season goes on. There’s some sex-related humor throughout the episode so I wouldn’t advise parents to let the little ones watch it before they have a chance to see it first.

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Justin Tolchuck is a sensitive, lanky 16-year old just trying to make it through the social nightmare of high school in Medora, Wisconsin, with the help of his well-meaning mom Franny, aspiring-entrepreneur dad Gary and his beautiful and popular younger sister Claire. Although he’s bright and funny, Justin is also shy, socially awkward and pretty much resigned to the fact that he’ll never be one of the cool kids. Franny, however, is the kind of take-charge mom who micro-manages her family, and she’s come up with a plan to help Justin: she signs up for the school’s international exchange student program. Picturing an athletic, brilliant Nordic teen, Franny is sure this new friendship will bestow instant coolness on her outsider son. However, when the Tolchuck’s exchange student arrives, he turns out to be Raja Musharaff, a 16-year-old Muslim from a small village in Pakistan. Raja is thoughtful, responsible and wise beyond his years. To the Tolchucks and everyone else in Medora, he’s also just about as foreign as a foreigner can be. While the rest of the family is slightly freaked out by the Muslim in their midst, Gary is comforted by the fact that the host family receives a monthly check to help with expenses. This fits right in with Gary’s money-making schemes, and when he sees how hard-working and respectful Raja is, he’s totally on board. As for Claire, she’s too busy with her friends and her new boyfriend to pay much attention to their houseguest, but Raja is smitten from the moment he first sees her. After the initial shock wears off, Justin is quickly won over by Raja’s humor, gestures of friendship and by their common status as outsiders. Despite the cultural chasm between them, Justin and Raja develop an unlikely bond that just might allow them to navigate the minefield that is contemporary high school. It’s going to be a very interesting year for Raja, Justin, his family and the entire population of Medora.

The show opens with the Tolchucks getting all spruced up to go on their ritual Sunday voyage to Shop World. Raja tells Franny that their weekly ritual is a lot like going to church; they go together as a family every Sunday and leave behind roughly ten percent of their income. Heh.

Shocked that Raja thinks her family is so spiritually devoid, she decides the family is going back to their church that minute… only to find out it has now become a Chicken Wing restaurant. Determined to find some faith, they head to a mega chuch, complete with a coffee bar, music section and housewares department. Here we get to see Gary’s obsession with a bargain (buying collectible saint plates), Justin finding his faith when he prays for a school bullies demise, and it happens, and Franny feeling relief when she manipulates Claire (who has asked for birth control pills for Christmas) into joining the “chastity club.”

It just gets more and more awesome with each passing minute. Justin thinks that his prayers are being answered, and starts to make them about less altruistic requests… his teacher comes down with Perkin’s disease, getting him out of a quiz, so then his friends decide this prayer business might be worth looking into. This devolves into praying for sex with Liz Sherman, resident hottie, and when she actually says, “hello” to the boys, the competition for her affections begin. Justin and his friend have a fight over the girl, and when he tells Raja of their prayer battle, Raja’s jaw hitting the floor and long lecture on the sanctity of prayer snaps Justin out of it.

Meanwhile, Franny directs the mega-church’s Christmas pagent, casting Claire as the Virgin Mary. So subtle. Claire admits to her peers that she’s only there so her mom will get her pill, and discovers that a hot guy is only in the chastity club for a car; sparks fly! Franny just thinks she’s into the part until she finds them making out in church closet. Then when Claire goes to church without Franny, it sends her into a panic that Claire’s going to do something very naughty in church. As she storms in on the two innocently running lines, she learns that maybe she should give Claire more credit and wonders why she really is doing the church thing at all.

In the end, good ol’ Raja comes through for Franny, explaining that her kids were raised with good values, regardless of whether or not they go to church. Franny realizes what she needed most was faith, and returns to church for herself, not for anyone else. Awwww. Claire even ends up going with her on Christmas because she, “likes the music.”

Great lines:

Raja: “At times we are all partial douches, but never a total one.”

Franny: “Part of playing the Virgin Mary is not jumping every shepherd that comes along!”

Franny: “Trust is earned, Lady Godiva!”

Raja: “Growing up in Pakistan, I never understood how Jesus got so fat. Then I realized it was Santa Claus. I should have known he was too jolly to be a messiah.”

Saturday June 28 at 7.00pm:

When Raja explains to his class how close he feels to Justin, everyone in the high school teases them mercilessly about being a ‘couple’.

About the show

Justin Tolchuk is a sensitive, lanky 16-year-old just trying to make it through the social nightmare of high school in Medora, Wisconsin, with the help of his well-meaning mom, aspiring entrepreneur dad and popular sister.

When Justin’s mother signs up for the school’s international exchange student program, she pictures being assigned an athletic, brilliant Nordic teen who will bestow instant coolness on her outsider son, Justin.

But the Tolchuks’ exchange student turns out to be Raja Musharaff, a 16-year-old Pakistani Muslim.

Despite the cultural chasm between Justin and Raja, they quickly develop an unlikely friendship that just might allow them to navigate the minefield that is contemporary high school.

It’s going to be a very interesting year for Raja, Justin, his family and the entire population of Medora.

by Chandra on May 10th, 2008

Hot on the heels of the utterly depressing news that Aliens in America will be no more following its May 18th freshman-season finale comes spectacular gossip from the opposite end of the Sucks Spectrum.

Multiple sources, such as at TV Guide and E! Online, have revealed within the last day that their inside sources confirm Reaper will get a sophomore run, to be officially announced at The CW’s upfront presentation in New York this Tuesday.

So, now I’m confused. Do I hate the fledgling network for canceling Aliens or do I love it for renewing Reaper? I think I’ll try a bit of both — hate on Sundays and love on Tuesdays … at least until they shake up the schedule again.

Let’s here it for the Devil! And Sock! And everybody else on the show!

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Here come the Tolchuks, Canada! …or maybe not.

Wonder Years star Fred Savage takes the directing reins for this installment of Aliens in America, “One Hundred Thousand Miles.”

All of the Tolchuks prepare to go on a family vacation to Vancouver, with student guest Raja in tow. But, when they get to the airport, something happens that totally and thoroughly derails their plans. This event then leads to a number of consequences, some good and some (temporarily) bad.

Aliens in America airs Sundays on The CW at 8:30pm EST.

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