This series of posts to come will feature things I end up doing when I should be sleeping. Enjoy!
The other night I flick on my TV to find an episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun starting. I was not quite ready to fall into winter slumber, so I figured I would revisit Dick Solomon and the gang and see if I enjoyed the series as much as I did back in the day. What did I find? That sleep can wait! I watched 2 and a half hours straight of this show!
3rd Rock in my opinion (keep in mind I have put no thought into this and also formed this opinion in the wee hours of the morning,) had one of the most underrated ensemble casts in sitcom history.
Lead by Dick Solomon played by John Lithgow, everyone in this cast seemed to have a lane and stuck with it. All the Solomons were a little naive and childlike, but you couldn’t blame them, they were aliens from another planet. I mean let’s see you go to Mars and blend right in right away. Go ahead, I’ll wait. See, not so easy huh? So shut up!
Getting back to the cast, you had Dick Solomon who was pretty much comedy gold every time he spoke. He didn’t seem to have a filter between his brain and mouth and would make the most honest (yet socially awkward) statements. In the one episode I was watching he told his entire classroom (oh did I mention he is a professor at a college? Cause he is) that their homework assignment was to buy him a birthday present. He then followed that up by stating (in a demeanor which would imply he didn’t want anything too extravagant) to the students “but please everyone, TRY to outdo one another, okay?”
The rest of the cast included
Sally (Kristen Johnson): the alien that had to become a woman because she lost a bet.
Harry (French Stewart): I believe his role was to squint and say “incoming message from the big giant head”
Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt): as an alien he was the oldest and smartest of the group, but as people he was a kid. Hilarious!
Supporting cast included Dr. Mary Albright played by Jane Curtin (you know, that ignorant slut from Saturday Night Live), who was Dick’s colleague and at some points girlfriend
And there was also Officer Don played by Wayne Knight or Newman! (as most of us know him,) a bumbling cop who is in love with Sally.
If you want to know more about 3rd Rock from the Sun, watch it on your own damn time!
Here is a clip to wet your appetite: