While crime procedurals and all other manner of show featuring lawyers and/or doctors sniping at and tumbling in and out of bed with one another crowd the docket of network television, the modern sitcom slate has for the most part congealed into entirely predictable family-oriented dreck (According to Jim is still on? Really?), aging animated shows, a few attractive ensembles (How I Met Your Mother) and a fewer still number of star vehicles. The time is ripe, in many ways, for a half-hour dose of Franklin Roosevelt’s famous prescription of “bold and persistent experimentation.” Actually, come to think of it, I guess that was what Arrested Development was, and nobody watched. Damn.

At any rate, at a time of development deals parceled out to up-and-coming comedians, 3rd Rock From the Sun was, from 1996 to 2001, a wild and wooly antidote — a show about aliens posing as humans that took great delight in re-injecting colorful silliness into prime time. As oblivious and self-satisfied patriarch Dick Solomon, star John Lithgow embraced with glee the opportunity to engage in all manner of physical slapstick and humiliating comedy, and the result was a series that, while still working within the confines of a traditional family show, infused a fresh, anarchic spirit into the half-hour sitcom.

Episode highlights here include “Paranoid Dick,” featuring a Neil Diamond impersonator; “Y2dicK,” in which Dick becomes furious over his inability to retrieve grade reports from his computer; “Collect Call for Dick,” in which young Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) gets drafted into duty as his school’s mascot after not showing the proper spirit at a basketball game; and the self-explanatory “Dick and Taxes.” Guest stars include recurring bit players William Shatner and Jan Hooks, plus Kathy Bates, Laurie Metcalf, Larry Miller, Kurtwood Smith and Kevin Nealon.

Spread out over four discs in solid and extremely attractive gatefold packaging, 3rd Rock From the Sun marks the latest winning release from Anchor Bay. First off, the picture on these two dozen, full-frame presentations is fairly solid, with no problems with grain or compression. There is perhaps a bit of attrition in color, but nothing that mortally wounds your enjoyment of the show. Audio comes courtesy of a competent Dolby digital stereo track, which more than adequately captures the show’s meager aural demands. A full spate of season-specific bloopers anchors the slate of supplemental materials, though there’s also an interview with Jane Curtin in which she discusses the challenge of tending to her character’s rigidity on such a wild set. There are also season highlights, but these are a bit repetitive and unnecessary for the casual viewer.

While there are unfortunately no audio-commentary tracks from the show’s writer-producers, there is, thankfully, a full-color, 16-page insert booklet that includes photos, substantial episodic recaps and a humorous, canted guide to human vanity and all sorts of other quirks, as seen through the eyes of the alien Solomons. Sample line about prosthetic legs: “Some people apparently prefer the durability of wood or plastic to traditional meat legs. First popularized by pirates.” B+ (Show) B+ (Disc)