Incredible hype can buy a big audience for one week. But how many people actually laughed?

That will be the question in the months ahead with regard to the CBC sitcom Little Mosque On The Prairie.

The premiere on Tuesday night pulled in just under 2.1 million viewers, which is a record for a homegrown series debut. The people who engineered CBC's pre-broadcast publicity campaign should give themselves a pat on the back. Critics' reviews of the show were mixed, however, with most observing that Little Mosque is more corny than cutting-edge.

True, the same could be said about CTV's long-running hit Corner Gas. But whether Little Mosque has that kind of staying power remains to be seen.

Little Mosque has garnered a lot of attention from the international press, primarily because it's about a group of Muslims who live in Western Canada, post-9/11.

CBC immediately risks alienating viewers by moving Little Mosque to Monday (9 p.m.) next week. Monday's show then will be repeated on Wednesday (8 p.m.), as the struggling public network continues to place a lot of eggs in the Little Mosque basket.