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3rd Rock from the Sun is an Emmy Award-winning American sitcom that aired from 1996 until 2001 on NBC. The show is about a group of extraterrestrials on an expedition of what they consider to be the least important planet, Earth (the 3rd Rock from the Sun), while posing as a human family of four, to observe human beings. Reruns currently air in the United States on TV Land and WCIU's sister station Me TV.
ckquote>"As many intelligent people know, aliens are all around us.
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Quotations
August: Your son is impossible.Dick: And you're a pain in the ass, you're made for each other!
Big Giant Head: The yelling will cease and the killing will commence!
Coach Strickland: taking a textbook from Tommy at a pep rally Gimme this book. That's not what school's about!
Dick: Families don't refer to each other by rank. They use more familiar terms like 'you' or 'bastard' or...'you bastard.'
Dick: Guns don't kill people, physics kills people!
Dick: I assure you Harry will not go unpunished! He will sit in his room and think about what he did while you repaint your house.
Encyclopedia
3rd Rock from the Sun is an Emmy Award-winning American sitcom that aired from 1996 until 2001 on NBC. The show is about a group of extraterrestrials on an expedition of what they consider to be the least important planet, Earth (the 3rd Rock from the Sun), while posing as a human family of four, to observe human beings. Reruns currently air in the United States on TV Land and WCIU's sister station Me TV.
Overview
Basic premise
"As many intelligent people know, aliens are all around us. This is a story of a band of four such explorers. In order to blend in, they have assumed human form. This is the High Commander [Dick]. He has assembled an elite team of experts: A decorated military officer [Sally], a seasoned intelligence specialist [Tommy] and, well, they had an extra seat [Harry]."
The premise of the show revolves around an extraterrestrial research expedition attempting to live as a normal human family in the fictional city of Rutherford, Ohio, where they live in a loft apartment. Humor was principally derived from the aliens' attempts to study human society and, because of their living as humans themselves while on Earth, to understand the human condition. In later episodes, they became more accustomed to Earth and often seemed to be more interested in their human lives than in their mission. The episode "Dick's Big Giant Headache" insinuates that this may be due to the effect the frailty of the human condition has on them.
Dick Solomon (played by John Lithgow), the High Commander and leader of the expedition, is the family provider, and takes a position as a physics professor at Pendelton State University. Information officer Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has been given the body of a teenager and is forced to enroll in high school (later college), leaving security officer Sally (Kristen Johnston) and communications officer Harry (French Stewart) to spend their lives as thirty somethings hanging out at home and bouncing through short-term jobs.
The family often communicates with their off-world (and usually unseen) boss, The Big Giant Head, who apparently only got the job by kissing "The Big Giant Butt." His orders are received through Harry, who unexpectedly (and often in inconvenient circumstances) stands erect, his arms stiff (acting as the antenna), and proclaims: "Incoming message from the Big Giant Head."
Sources of humor
The show derived much humor from the contrast between the outward appearance adopted by each of the aliens and his or her actual, internal nature. Dick, far from being a wise and fatherly figurehead, is arrogant, self-absorbed, petulant, faddish, and often downright foolish. Inside Sally’s glamorous form lives the weapons and security officer: uncouth, swaggering, and macho. Tommy, the oldest of the group, is morphed into a teenager, his former wisdom at odds with the strange and often humiliating life in which his teenage persona and raging hormones casts him. Only the oddball of the group, Harry, seems comfortable with Earth — yet he is the weirdest of them all, particularly when his built-in radio function takes unexpected control over his body, relaying orders from the aliens' home world in an odd, booming voice.
Typical episode themes
Almost all the episodes revolve around the Solomons' difficulty integrating themselves into Earth culture and understanding human customs — often their view of Earth realities is distorted by the fact that almost all of their experience of Earth comes through the media, especially television, rather than firsthand experience.
Details about their alien nature are rarely given and inconsistent, except to reinforce the idea that their former lives were almost barren of emotion and most of the relationships humans have with each other. Their original forms, for example, are described as nonsexual, with reproduction a matter of sending packets of genetic material to each other in the mail. Leaders like The Big Giant Head are unelected and assumed infallible (in fact, it is stated that politicians on their planet are chosen by seeing which one can outrun the giant fireball). The upshot is that living in an Earth culture provides the Solomons with an almost intolerable degree of emotional stimulation and conflict, which they are very ill-equipped to handle.
Some of the episodes seemingly derive their comedy from affectionate send-ups of TV and films. For example, in the episode "Father Knows Dick," when Harry finds out he is a transmitter, he "goes off the rails" (complete with red jacket as worn by Jim in Rebel Without a Cause), yells "You're tearing me apart!" and goes off to play "chicken" with a tough guy in a bar (But ends up buying fried chicken from KFC instead). In the episode "Dick's Big Giant Headache," both Dick and the Big Giant Head mention seeing something on the wing of the plane after having traveled by airline, a nod to both John Lithgow and William Shatner having played the role of the passenger who sees a gremlin on the wing in The Twilight Zone. In another episode, a face-slapping session with Dick and Sally pastiches the Chinatown sequence: "She's my daughter; my sister; my daughter." In "When Aliens Camp," the Solomons and Mary go on a disastrous camping trip. Dick is captured by a bunch of boy scouts and instantly turns "native", painting his face and sighing "The horror" in a spoof of Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now. In a tribute to silent movies, one episode shows Sally holding a plank on her shoulder and turning from side to side as Tommy ducks, and Harry gets hit.
Common mythology
Occasionally references would be made to specific features of the aliens' abilities and of their experiences on their own world, which built up a common mythology for the show. The theme of the idiot savant repeatedly resurfaces, since each member of the family makes up for their extreme naïveté with some special skill owing to their alien nature.
Though Dick's understanding of physics is weaker than his son Tommy's, it is implied that even his basic scientific knowledge makes advanced Earth physics appear rudimentary, leading to his becoming respected in his field despite his childish behavior. A well-known segment from an episode has him reading a passage from A Brief History of Time and laughing hysterically at Stephen Hawking's description of virtual particles. Even so, Dick is often shown as the member of the family with the least to recommend him in terms of ability, leading them to question his right to his command. Sally, for instance, is depicted as not only having an attractive body (she is often described as being Amazonian), but being amazingly physically strong and fit, able to fight and defeat large groups of men much larger than she (even when doing so is unnecessary and culturally inappropriate).
Tommy, similarly, has been trained with the ability of near-instant recall and has an encyclopedic knowledge about Earth society, which unfortunately seems useless in terms of helping him make appropriate decisions, but ensures that he remains a straight-A student.
Harry is most fascinating, since his behavior is bizarre, unstable and borderline mentally disabled even for a Solomon (a condition, it is implied, engendered by the chip in his brain that allows him to communicate with the home planet), yet somehow this mental condition gives him an inexplicable sex appeal for women and makes him the only Solomon with any talent in the arts — Harry often seems to have a knack for all fine arts, including music and theater, and is consistently shown as being an incredibly talented painter, especially as a portraitist and caricaturist, though his inability to verbally articulate his artistic ideas – or, in fact, any ideas at all – in an intelligent fashion sinks his efforts at making a living through his talent.
One of Dick's driving motivations becomes his desire to master drawing, acting, music, or other pursuits - all of which he fails at miserably because of his lack of understanding of how the clearly less intelligent Harry could possibly possess talents he does not.
Relationships with humans
Each alien became involved in various relationships with humans throughout the course of the series, primarily focusing on Dick's infatuation – at first met with disgust and then, finally, reciprocation – with anthropology professor Dr. Mary Albright (Jane Curtin), who shares an office with him. Much is often made of Mary's angst, insecurity, and neuroses brought on by a lifetime of studying the human condition as well as an unstable relationship with her parents, and the cheerful, childlike naïveté displayed by Dick, the primary factor in him that attracts her.
Sally similarly acquires a long-term boyfriend, Officer Don Orville (Wayne Knight), an overweight and incompetent police officer who becomes attracted to her after several incidents in which he is forced to confront or arrest the Solomons for various crimes. The two generally have conversations while speaking in a manner similar to an old 1930s crime drama.
Tommy manages an on-again/off-again relationship with August Leffler (Shay Astar), a reserved ice queen teenager and later the more bubbly Alissa Strudwick (Larisa Oleynik).
Harry has a relationship with his landlord Mrs. Dubcek's (Elmarie Wendel) daughter Vicki (played by Jan Hooks), in an on-screen relationship that often features overly melodramatic scenes. Harry, despite no apparent skills in the art of seduction, also manages to foil a plot to dissolve the Earth by seducing Cindy Crawford.
Some humor comes from the fact that at some point in the show most of the character relationships have been mixed up — a strange attraction is briefly shown between Mary and Tommy because of their similar passion for the social sciences and the study of humanity, in which Tommy disturbingly chooses to step aside and let Dick pursue her instead. Nina (Simbi Khali), Dick's assistant who primarily serves as his straight man and comic foil, is seen briefly having a fling with Harry. Mrs. Dubcek also, who is at first merely a source of comic relief, her own bizarre foibles and imperceptibly causing her to be a terrible role model for proper human behavior to the Solomons, is revealed to have had a fling with Harry.
Plot twists
Initially, the only reference to the aliens' true forms was a comment made in the first episode, when upon discovering that human heads cannot swivel to 180 degrees, Dick queries: "How do they lick their backs?". As time went on, the show began to intersperse concrete references to the aliens' nature and their homeworld which played a role in affecting the show's plot. They usually described their original bodies as "gelatinous purple tubes" that lacked sex organs or most of the forms of physical definition that humans possess. In fact, when Sally asks why she had to be the woman, Dick reminds her that she lost the draw. Evidently, individuals in their species are so near-identical to each other that the Solomons were unaware of the concept of race or ethnicity, and had never invented one for themselves, leading to them to attempt to choose one (a source of humor since the Solomons all appear quite white), eventually deciding that they are Jewish because of their surname, which they had taken from the side of a truck.
Occasionally, the Solomons would encounter or think they encountered other extraterrestrials — the most long-lasting such gag being the Solomons' belief that Jell-O is an offshoot of a hostile, amorphous, carnivorous species they have often encountered, prompting them to go into hysterics whenever they see it served and attempt to destroy it. Their first brief encounter with snow was believed to have been attacks from a swarm of albino brain chiggers.
The name of the Solomons' home planet (if they indeed have one) is never revealed throughout the course of the series; in the show's dialogue, it is referred to as simply "The Home Planet." It is located in a barred spiral galaxy on the Cepheus-Draco border. Major twists in the plot, often shown in the various season finales, tended to involve contact with the home planet, involving their superiors' ongoing disapproval at the Solomons' antics and their becoming a laughing stock among their peers.
Cast
3rd Rock maintained a constant ensemble cast, the four main characters – Dick, Sally, Tommy, Harry – with the exception of Tommy, all appearing on the show for every episode of the six seasons it ran. Several other main characters who left or joined the show through its original run supplemented these four, and numerous guest stars and one-time characters supplemented all of them.
Main characters
- Dick Solomon (John Lithgow) — The High Commander and head of the expedition to Earth. Is often the most child-like member of the group, being, ironically, the youngest of the crew, despite being the oldest family member. Much of the behavioral or societal-based troubles faced by the crew in their mission whilst on Earth are frequently sourced out of some juvenile act perpetrated by Dick, troubles which in turn are forced to be overcome by the entire troupe with a great deal of reluctance.
- Sally Solomon (Kristen Johnston) — Rank is Lieutenant, and she is the security officer and second-in-command. She has been called Dick’s sister, but sometimes introduced as Tommy's sister earlier in the series, and, on one occasion, claimed to be his mother, although never Dick's daughter and certainly not his spouse -- failure to clarify the exact relationship between Tommy, Harry and Sally led to humorous confusion whenever either Harry or Sally attempted to act as Tommy's guardian. Sally was chosen to be the woman because she apparently lost some sort of contest and was not too thrilled about it; while the alien species is described as asexual, Sally seems to have a harder time trying to figure out womanhood than the others do manhood. She filed a request to be made male early in the mission, though later decided she liked being a woman.
- Harry Solomon (French Stewart) — Originally he was not part of the mission, but just happened to go for the ride because an extra seat was available. Later, it became known that a chip was in his head, and he became the Communicator or Transmitter. Occasionally, he will get a message from the Solomons' leader, the Big Giant Head, shaking violently in the middle of a sentence and squats down, with his arms at 90 degree angles, declaring "Incoming message from the Big Giant Head!", before going through the motions of delivering the message. He posed as Dick and Sally's brother, and Tommy's uncle.
- Tommy Solomon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) — Information Officer and next-in-command. Tommy plays the role of Dick's adolescent son, yet he is the oldest and smartest of all the aliens. Throughout the series, Tommy continually reminded the others of his superior intelligence and older age. Gordon-Levitt left the series (after the fifth season concluded) as a primary character, only appearing as a recurring character in about half the episodes of season six.
- Dr. Mary Albright (Jane Curtin) — Dick's colleague and on-and-off girlfriend. Mary felt that Dick was an insensitive idiot, but she could not avoid the infatuation of his quirkiness or child-like actions. Reference is often made to the insecurity caused by her bad parenting, and the fact that before Dick arrived, she was known for sleeping around, and had even been nicknamed "Dr. Slutbunny."
- Nina Campbell (Simbi Khali) — Dick and Mary's administrative assistant, who often has to put up with Dick demanding things of her that she isn't paid to do (such as taking his car to have its tires rotated) to which she takes a no-nonsense stance. Generally, Nina considers Dick to be an idiot, a chauvinist, and a jerk, and sometimes wonders why Mary dates him. However, there are moments when this pair does appear to actually get on.
- Mrs. Mamie Dubcek (Elmarie Wendel) — The Solomons' loose, clueless, and carefree landlady who has a very active love life and often makes reference to her sexual escapades (once bringing the Solomons a letter that "the mailman accidentally left in [her] bedroom"). Despite being the Solomon's landlady, she has a friend-like relationship with them, and she often appears in their apartment.
- Officer Don Leslie Orville (Wayne Knight) — Works for Rutherford's police department. He isn't very good at his job as a policeman. Don maintains an on-off relationship with Sally throughout the series. It is revealed in the final episode of the series that Don is a coward and only joined the police force to be around all the policemen where nothing would happen.
Minor characters
- Vicki Dubcek (Jan Hooks) - Daughter of Ms. Dubcek, Harry's on-off girlfriend who ends up marrying and having a child with the Big Giant Head.
- Bug Pollone (David DeLuise) — One of Dick's students.
- Leon (Ian Lithgow) — One of Dick's students. In reality he is John Lithgow's son from his first marriage.
- Caryn (Danielle Nicolet) — One of Dick's students.
- Aubrey Pitman (Chris Hogan) — One of Dick's students.
- Dr. Judith Draper (Ileen Getz) — Professor at Pendelton and colleague of Mary.
- August Leffler (Shay Astar) — Tommy's first girlfriend (in seasons 1-4).
- Alissa Strudwick (Larisa Oleynik) — Tommy's second girlfriend (in seasons 4-6).
- Dr. Vincent Strudwick (Ron West) — Alissa's father and rival to Dick (in seasons 2-6).
- The Big Giant Head (William Shatner) — The aliens' boss. He goes by the name Stone Philips on the Earth (in seasons 4 & 5).
- Dr. Liam Neesam (John Cleese) — A professor who briefly has a relationship with Mary, and is later revealed to be an evil alien (in seasons 3 & 6). The name is a play on the name of actor Liam Neeson.
- Narrator (James Earl Jones, unseen) - provided narration for the opening titles (in season 1).
Guest stars
Episodes
Nielsen rankings
| Season | Episodes | Rank |
|---|
| 1st | 1996 | 20 | #22 | | 2nd | 1996-1997 | 26 | #28 | | 3rd | 1997-1998 | 27 | #44 | | 4th | 1998-1999 | 24 | #77 | | 5th | 1999-2000 | 22 | #82 | | 6th | 2000-2001 | 20 | #89 |
International broadcasters
Major TV Awards & Nominations
In 1997, 3rd Rock won the most Emmy Awards (five from eight nominations) for a television series:
- 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 — Outstanding Lead Actor — Comedy Series — John Lithgow
- 1997, 1998, 1999 — Outstanding Supporting Actress — Comedy Series — Kristen Johnston
- 1996, 1997 — Outstanding Hairstyling For A Series — Pixie Schwartz
- 1996 — Outstanding Directing For A Comedy Series — James Burrows
- 1998 — Outstanding Directing For A Comedy Series — Terry Hughes
- 1997 — Outstanding Special Visual Effects — Glen Bennett, Visual Effects Artists; Patrick Shearn, Visual Effects Supervisor; Chris Staves, Visual Effects Artists
- 1997, 1999, 2000 — Outstanding Sound Mixing — Comedy Series
- 1998 — Outstanding Sound Mixing — Comedy Series — "A Nightmare on Dick Street"
- 1997, 1998 — Outstanding Costume Design — Series — Melina Root
- 1997, 1998 — Outstanding Comedy Series
- 1997 — Outstanding Choreography — Marguerite Derricks
- 1998 — Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series — Jan Hooks as Vicki Dubcek
- 1998 — Outstanding Guest Actor In A Comedy Series — John Cleese as Dr. Neesam
- 1999, 2000 — Outstanding Multi-Camera Picture Editing For A Series
- 1999 — Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series — Kathy Bates as Charlotte Everly; and Laurie Metcalf as Jennifer
- 1999 — Outstanding Guest Actor In A Comedy Series — William Shatner as The Big Giant Head
- 2000 — Outstanding Cinematography For A Multi-Camera Series
John Lithgow received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for each year the show was broadcast, winning the Emmy in 1996, 1997, and 1999. Accepting the 1999 award he said "Many wonderful things have happened to me in my life, but the two best are 3rd Rock and my family."
Golden Globe Awards
- 1997 — Best Actor in a Television Comedy or Musical — John Lithgow
Screen Actors Guild Awards
DVD releases
All six seasons of 3rd Rock from the Sun have been released on DVD in Region 1 by Anchor Bay Entertainment and in Region 2 by Network DVD. Ironically, the sixth season was the first to be released in the UK, as early as 2002, but it was re-released when the fifth season was released. The complete series box-set featuring every episode was re-released in the UK on November 3rd, 2008.
| Season | Ep# | Release Date |
|---|
| Region 1 | Region 2 | Region 4 |
|---|
| 1 | 20 | July 6, 2005 | May 17, 2004 | November 9, 2005 | | 2 | 26 | October 25, 2005 | June 21, 2004 | November 9, 2005 | | 3 | 27 | February 21, 2006 | August 30, 2004 | February 8, 2006 | | 4 | 24 | May 2, 2006 | October 25, 2004 | July 6, 2006 | | 5 | 22 | August 15, 2006 | January 24, 2005 | February 7, 2007 | | 6 | 20 | November 14, 2006 | June 10, 2002 | February 7, 2007 | Complete Box Set
(Seasons 1-6) | 139 | TBA | October 25, 2004 | TBA |
Other media
A tie-in book, 3rd Rock from the Sun: The Official Report, was released in 1997. Its pages are printed in black and white; however, there are several glossy colored pictures in the center pages featuring various cast members on the show.
The book is essentially a report of their findings during their stay on Earth (although in Dick Solomon's foreword, he states that the report has been requested too early). Primarily a source of humor, the book includes such features as "What to do if you encounter Jell-O", a fan biography of Katie Couric written by Harry, and Sally's version of a Cosmo quiz. Portions of the book are included in the Booklets inside each season set of the series.
Despite the report's being set within the fictional world of 3rd Rock, there is a foreword written by John Lithgow himself in which he explains how he was abducted by the 3rd Rock producers and forced to work on their production. There is a post-it note attached to the foreword, apparently written by Dick Solomon, stating that he doesn't know why the foreword is there, but that Lithgow is an Earth actor who appeared in "some helicopter movie." A black and white picture of the 3rd Rock cast and crew is also included at the end of the book.
External links
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