3rd Rock
From The Sun – Season One
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: B- Episodes: B
Though it was not a masterwork of cinema, the feature film
version of The Coneheads (1993) had more laughs and more going for it
than most critics gave it credit for.
Instead of giving up on such storytelling, two of its writers decided to
create a new scenario to deal with the ideas they did not get to use in the
film or any sequels. Bonnie & Terry
Turner created 3rd Rock From The Sun, which began a hugely
successful run on NBC beginning in 1996.
Among their many stupid and quickly dated hits that made them the number
one network in the mid-1980s onward, the show helped keep their run going later
before they recently got into trouble.
Red-hot Carsey-Werner produced the show and landed an
exceptional cast in the great tradition of comedy TV. John Lithgow, Kristen Johnson, French Stewart and Joseph
Gordon-Levitt play outer space aliens who arrive in an old 1950 convertible
(the Turner’s retained their hip humor from the original Saturday Night Live
and never sold out) to study life on earth.
Lithgow was the High Commander, though Gordon-Levitt’s Senior Officer is
older, he pretends to be his son.
Stewart is the living communications body, while Johnston is a Lieutenant
who is having interesting adjustment problems trying to figure out what earth
women are about. Former Conehead Jane
Curtin herself ironically plays the main earthling on the show, her third hit
series in three decades after SNL and better-than-remembered Kate
& Alley.
Though not every single joke is a gem, most of the humor
works and the exceptional amount of chemistry and natural talent mixes with the
clever improvisation and consistent teleplay writing to create a show that has
become better with age. Sometimes
subversive, always daring to be original, this was one of the very rare
American situation comedies that was not regressive, childish, watered-down, or
dumbed-down. That is why it is one of
the few such non-star obsessed such shows from U.S. TV since the 1980s to have
such exceptional overseas success. Its
sense of Americana and reconfiguring of sitcom archetypes is something few
comedy series have ever attempted.
Instead of being a “dramedy” or just a carbon copy of something done before,
the show dealt with what it is to be human in a way the science fiction genre
or comedy genre rarely does.
Oddly, it plays as a flipside of sorts to Nicolas Roeg’s
1976 classic The Man Who Fell To Earth (reviewed elsewhere on this
site), if not as darkly so. Each
episode takes a few aspects of life taken for granted, outlines it, and then
runs with it. It also does this without
seeming forced or allowing itself to get distracted by self-centered, pointless
garbage that has been the hallmark of much recent TV and feature film
production. The episodes in this 4-DVD
set are:
1) Brains
& Eggs
2) Post-Nasal
Dick
3) Dick’s
First Birthday
4) Dick Is
From Mars, Sally Is From Venus
5) Dick,
Smoker
6) Green-Eyed
Dick
7) Lonely
Dick
8) Body
& Soul & Dick
9) Ab-Dick-Ted
10) Truth Or Dick
11) The Art Of Dick
12) Frozen Dick
13) Angry Dick
14) The Dicks They Are A Changin’
15) I Enjoy Being A Dick
16) Dick Like Me
17) Assault With A Deadly Dick
18) Father Knows Dick
19) Selfish Dick
20) See Dick Run
Well, the writers were having fun with the titles, while
Lithgow’s lead character became the center of all the insanity. For an actor who has logged some amazing
screen work and often stole films from bigger stars, he meshes well with the
rest of the cast and it is a real integrated group effort. Everyone gets to show off one-of-a-kind
characters and the result is an American original. If you have not seen the show, this is the best way to catch up
with it.
Fans will be happy that the DVDs have turned out as nicely
as they have. Anchor Bay has issued a
nice DigiPak box with a fun gimmick: you press a button hidden underneath the
front cover and a Lithgow line plays each time. I had problems getting this to work with my box, but you may fare
better. As for the picture on the
episodes, the 1.33 X 1 image quality is good, though it lacks some detail and
the older animated credits (which looked fake to begin with on purpose for
laughs) has aged a bit. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo is also good, as it was originally broadcast, by the sound
has no surrounds either.
Extras include highlights of the season, DVD-ROM teleplays
you can print out, TV spots, a 16 page booklet in the foldout, and interview
segments around the time of production with Lithgow, Johnston, Stewart,
Gordon-Levitt, Curtin, Simbi Khali, Elmarie Wendel and Wayne Knight. That’s a good set of bonus material and you
can tell the actors were very happy with having such a nice series to do. Fans have been waiting for this for a long
time. For those who held off on getting
the British import and a multi-region player, you series has arrived.
- Nicholas Sheffo
