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)