The best of G-Force	HOQ Home	Who We Are and Why We're Here	Major Hollywood Celebs	Movies	Trivia	When the TV is Off	HOQ Store	Voyager Synopses	B5 Synopses	Miscellany

On my recent flight from Chicago’s O’Hare to Denver’s DIA, United Airlines showed an episode of Third Rock From The Sun starring John Lithgow and Jane Curtin.

Interestingly enough, the video included custom-produced commercials where they would have been if the program were presented during prime time at sea level. So it was no extra special treat to watch it cruising at an altitude of 39,000 feet at a speed pretty close to Mach I.

Surprisingly, the show provided several good chuckles and even a few hearty laughs.

This episode’s special guest star, Ed Begley Jr., played a former co-worker of Jane Curtin’s. Begley came back to the office to gloat about his book which had just been published. Curtain showed an old-friend interest in Begley and that made Lithgow very jealous-an emotion he had no idea how to deal with because he had never felt it before.

The rest of the show centered around love relationships between the sexes.

To those even less TV savvy than me, the premise of Third Rock From the Sun is that Lithgow and his crew have been sent to examine the customs, conventions and mores of the middle class middle America.

Lithgow’s first lieutenant, Sally Solomon, is played by Kristen Johnston. In keeping with her charge to learn about women on earth, Lithgow sends Johnston to find out what makes women choose men so that he can manipulate co-worker Jane Curtain to select him.

One of the show’s funniest moments occurs when Johnston drives up to Lookout Point and hanging over the door of her car with a pad and pencil begins to interview a couple trying to make out. The lieutenant asks the woman why she chose the guy she’s with even though he appears to be a loser. After the young woman makes a few feeble excuses, Johnston deduces, "It’s the car," and the young woman agrees reluctantly while trying to hide the fact from her bemused companion.

Later in the show, Johnston enters a diner and asks an elderly woman the same question. The older woman takes her mate by the hand and makes several feeble attempts to explain her 42-year relationship. Johnston deduces once again, "It was the car," and the elderly lady agrees with an embarrassed smile.

Lithgow then asks Curtain out on a date and even though she accepts at first, she later cancels to go to Begley’s book-signing party. The scene at the book signing is pretty stupid, except for the one part where Lithgow tells Begley, "Every word in your book has been printed before. Perhaps you’ve heard of The Dictionary?"

A huge fight breaks out over which gal belongs to which guy but it was all pretty stupid. I didn’t see most of the conclusion because lunch was served-although I didn’t feel that I had missed out on anything.

If you absolutely haven’t got anything better to do, 3RFS might be a way to kill a half an hour. It would certainly be more entertaining than Geraldo & Dershowitz.

From this one episode it is evident that 3RFS tries to take a look at some of the more arcane social mores we in the middle class sometimes take for granted.

Is it true, for instance, that we don’t take interest in someone until someone else tries to take him or her away?

HOQers should know however, that the program is more comedy than sci-fi , although there may be a potential for poking fun at some of the more fatuous aspects of sci-fi as well.

Interestingly enough, the series was created by the Emmy Award-winning husband and wife writing team of Bonnie and Terry Turner, who dubbed 3RFS "the garlic of television," which the Emmy Award-winning Lithgow said was basically what attracted him to the show and away from the big screen.

The show premiered on NBC in January of 1996, has run about 75 or so shows since then, with a fifth season in the works.

One Third Rocker contacted via the internet lamented the shows decline in ratings since its inception and blamed NBC for shuffling the show all over prime time. Indeed, it would seem to take a very resilient show to survive four seasons under those conditions, especially competing against Drew Carey, Home Improvement and shows of that ilk.

The best of G-Force	HOQ Home	Who We Are and Why We're Here	Major Hollywood Celebs	Movies	Trivia	When the TV is Off	HOQ Store	Voyager Synopses	B5 Synopses	Miscellany