3rd Rock from the Sun / YMMV

Awesome Music:
- The main theme. Surf rock is an odd choice for such a science fiction concept, but it's a bouncy melody that still manages to fit the show.
- Harry's Dream Sequence musical number, "Life Has Been Good To Me" by Randy Newman. He's not a bad singer, surprisingly.
- The "Mission Song" from the last moments of the series finale, made all the better by the entire quartet actually knowing how to sing and harmonize reasonably well. Also counts as a Crowning Moment of Funny, Heartwarming, and Awesome.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: After the King Of The Jig show in "A Friend In Dick", Harry and Don perform a spontaneous Irish step dance of their own outside the theater. Mary and Judith exit shortly behind them and, after watching silently for a moment, join in (along with the first few people leaving behind them). Their dance includes some tricky choreography that is executed flawlessly and, once it's done, is acknowledged by no one.
Crosses the Line Twice: Playing "keep away" with someone's baby? Black Comedy. But put it in a Good-Times Montage like this one...
- Then there's this:
  Dick: Nina, please, we're talking about prejudice here, something you know nothing about.
  Nina: I'm black.
  Dick: Oh, right. [grabs a Post-It note and begins writing] "Nina...is...black." [slaps the note on her chest and turns back around]
- In the same vein as the keep away, the event Don describes as "Juggling newborns." It's not as bad as it sounds, but it was severe enough for Don to give the Solomons a pretty severe What the Hell, Hero?
Fan-Preferred Couple: Harry/Nina. "The Tooth Harry" demonstrated their potential, but they broke up before they ever got together due to a One Dialogue, Two Conversations misunderstanding.
Genius Bonus:
- During one episode, Dick comments that Easter Island was a practical joke that got out of hand. Many listeners will simply associate this joke with the massive stone heads and laugh, but a person who has read about the ecological and societal collapse resulting from overuse of natural resources due to Moai construction will understand the "got out of hand" differently.
- Trying to blend in as a human physics professor means Dick does equal parts Genius Bonus and alien Techno Babble, like "grading on a transient loop".
- When Sally gets a tomato plant and becomes obsessed with him, she names him "Jeremy," claiming that she originally wanted to call it "Lycopersicon Esculentum," but that sounded too snotty. That sounds like alien Techno Babble, but is actually the scientific name for tomatoes.
Harsher in Hindsight: In "Hotel Dick," Dick, Sally and Harry were all horrified after they watched a movie about killer aliens and feared humans really believed they were capable of such carnage. Come "Alien Hunter," Dick almost has his head cut open by a woman who thinks he's capable of doing exactly the kind of harm the aliens from that movie do. Meaning Dick and the others had a more of a right to be scared than they thought.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Also in "Dick the Vote", Don wonders if the Solomons are Amish. In the Season 6 episode "Mary Loves Scoochie (Part 1)", Sally and Harry briefly become Amish.
- In "The Dicks, They Are A-Changin" (originally aired in 1996), Dick looks at a CD and remarks "Such primitive technology. I wonder if the people on this planet will ever discover the superior sound of vinyl". Vinyl would go through a major revival in The New '10s, with several people unironically claiming that it sounds superior to CDs.
- In "Angry Dick," Dick blurts out to his class that Earth would be destroyed by a meteor in 2015. Looks like we're good.
- In one episode, Mary is portrayed as pretentious for saying that the only TV she ever watches is The History Channel. Of course, this was before that channel underwent its infamous Network Decay.
- In light of the "Karen" meme, it's sort of amusing that Dick's student Caryn (pronounced the same) is the Phrase Catcher for, "Shut up, Caryn!"
- In one episode, Sally comments that, "I just can't get used to Bond being played by anybody but Timothy Dalton." At the time this aired, Dalton was widely seen as an inferior Bond, so Sally viewing him as the definitive Bond was a joke all by itself. Dalton's tenure as Bond would since be Vindicated by History.
Hollywood Homely: In "Dick and the Single Girl", a frumpy physicist falls for Dick, and Nina says that only a complete lunatic would be attracted to her. She's played by Christine Baranski.
Memetic Mutation:
- INCOMING MESSAGE FROM THE BIG GIANT HEAD!
- OH MY GOD! I'M GORGEOUS! (sometimes given as "Oh dear god!")
More Popular Replacement:
- August, Tommy's uptight girlfriend in the first two seasons, was hated by fans. Tommy's second girlfriend Alissa was much more likable and better received.
- Sally's Second Love Don is better remembered than Mr. Randall, her first love interest in early episodes. He eventually gets a Promotion to Opening Titles.
Nightmare Fuel: Charlotte from "Alien Hunter" planned to cut open Dick's head to find the transmitter that's actually in Harry. When Dick tries to play dumb insisting the family's human, Charlotte reveals she's been stalking the Solomons for over a year and none of them (not even Sally, who's supposed to be on guard for this type of thing as the security officer) ever suspected. Oh, and she's got a body count of several people she murdered under the mistaken assumption they were aliens too.
Questionable Casting: You don't need to look at the credits to know that Leon's actor is directly related to John Lithgow. Considering the whole premise is that Dick isn't supposed to be related to anybody, it comes across as rather jarring.
The Scrappy: Tommy's first girlfriend, August. Manipulative, selfish, snooty, Straw Feminist, and all-around bitch who broke up with Tommy due to his "immaturity", after being caught cheating on him and lying about it to his face. ^note The 'manipulative' part can't be underscored enough; some of the things she does during their relationship border on emotional abuse.
Seasonal Rot: Rising star Joseph Gordon-Levitt settling into a recurring role in Season 6 coincided with the episode plots getting significantly Denser and Wackier. Coupled with frequent time slot changes, it was no surprise when the show never made it to a seventh season.
Squick: The revelation in the finale that Harry has been involved with both Dubcecks.
Strawman Has a Point: When Dick is called for jury duty, he's entirely gung-ho about the process until he learns the defendant is someone he's met. The case is iron-clad and he's completely guilty and Dick knows it, but Dick can't bear to send someone he knows to jail, and have him know Dick in turn. Dick even uses the words "now he has a face" to explain why it bothers him. He's still an idiot, but he sees the defendant as a person and not just a criminal to be convicted.
- Legally, he should have been excused from the case anyway, since no one in the jury is supposed to know anyone involved in the case.
Take That, Scrappy!: August gets her comeuppance. After they break up, Tommy convinces everyone that he dumped her which constantly gets thrown in her face.
- And even before they broke up, Dick dropped this epic comeback on her:
  August: [leaving in a huff] Your son is impossible!
  Dick: And you're a pain in the ass; you're made for each other!
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In Season 1, the Solomons discover that their last name means that they can easily pass for a Jewish family. They never wind up committing to Jewish culture, however, and they abandon it by Season 2, beginning to celebrate Christmas.
The Woobie: Alissa was very sweet and approachable (so long as you don't get her near a hockey game) and deserved better than Innocently Insensitive Tommy.

YMMV / 3rd Rock from the Sun

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