29 new shows are headed for your TV

What's not to like? This comes to us from the producer of "Two and a Half Men," and it's not exactly family fare. The content (and quite a few of the jokes") are rather, um, adult in nature.

Will it work? Looks like it could be a great bridge between "How I Met Your Mother" and "Two and a Half Men."

Debuts: Mondays, Sept. 24

ALIENS IN AMERICA (Mondays, 7:30 p.m., CW/Ch. 30) has nothing to do with outer space, it's about the Midwest.

Justin Tolchuck (Dan Byrd) is a nice, normal, average, shy, awkward 16-year-old who feels like an alien at his Wisconsin high school. His well-meaning mother, Franny (Amy Pietz), wants desperately for him to be popular, but her efforts only make things worse. So she decides to take in a foreign-exchange student to give Justin a built-in friend.

However, instead of the Nordic god they were expecting, they get Raja Musharaff (Adhir Kalyan), a 16-year-old Muslim from a small village in Pakistan.

Franny is aghast. Justin's dad Gary (Scott Patterson of "Gilmore Girls") is only worried about the monthly check they get from the exchange program.

Poor Raja is also a nice, normal kid, but he's made to feel completely alien in America. And, quite unexpectedly, he and Justin form a firm friendship.

The show recalls "Malcolm In the Middle" — and it's really funny stuff.

What's to like? Byrd and Kalyan are great; the show feels fresh; it's not afraid to have a Muslim character and be funny.

What's not to like? Some of the jokes are a bit too much (although the scene in the original pilot of the school bullies putting a (fake) gun in Justin's mouth has been edited out).

Will it work? Given that The CW hasn't been able to turn "Everybody Hates Chris" into a hit, there's little reason to think the network can make a hit out of "Aliens in America." But, given The CW's somewhat lower ratings expectations, this could do well enough to survive.

Debuts: Monday, Oct. 1

K-VILLE (Mondays, 8 p.m., Fox/Ch. 13) is the most pompous show of the new season — a mediocre (at best) cop show cloaking itself in a false mantle of quality because it's set and shot in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Marlin Boulet (Anthony Anderson) is a NOPD veteran, a member of the Felony Action Squad who stood at his post during the flood while his partner (and a lot of other New Orleans cops) ran off. Two years after the disaster, he's obsessed with rebuilding the city and his life.

His new partner, Trevor Cobb (Cole Hauser) is an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan. And Marlin isn't too sure about him.