3rd Rock From the Sun - DVD Review

Why is light, physically-based comedy so overlooked in the modern critical view of television? Critics will happily point to old physical comedians like Benny Hill or the Monty Python crew but if a new show features any sort of humor involving pratfalls or bodily functions, the same critic will completely write it off as unworthy of his time. This is why, when it was on the air, you never read anything about 3rd Rock From the Sun. Average people liked the show because, well, it was funny, but critics and the media in general hardly ever paid any attention to it. Now, through the 20/20 hindsight of TV shows on DVD, the show can be appreciated for what it was, not landmark, groundbreaking television by any stretch of the imagination, but simply very funny almost every week - the simple goal of the sitcom and yet one rarely achieved.

With sitcoms, an important part of the battle is fought before they even get to the air with the show's premise and its casting. Many shows have been killed before they even had a timeslot because they weren't creative enough with their premise and they didn't have an appealing, talented cast. Third Rock From the Sun has an undeniably ripe-for-comedy premise with its spin on a classic comedy routine, "the fish out of water", in this case a quartet of aliens sent to Earth to study humans. Even more crucial to its success, it has a very talented ensemble, and it's their chemistry and timing that makes 3rd Rock From the Sun much more re-watchable than you might think.

3rd Rock doesn't have the witty writing of a Seinfeld or even Raymond but the first season, coming next week to DVD, features great performances from John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, Jane Curtin, and the rest of the underrated ensemble. The show is first and foremost Lithgow's as he always gets the "A plotline" and the strongest jokes but, like all of the best television, everyone gets their moment and there's not one cast member with weak comic timing or bad chemistry. The premise and even the actual scripts for 3rd Rock could have been torpedoed with a weak cast but they found a group to pull off the silly behavior. Each episode glides by on the cast's excellent comic timing. You'll be surprised how many of them you can digest in one sitting.

And yet, I still feel odd praising 3rd Rock From the Sun. It's a show that critics aren't "supposed to" like, a critical guilty pleasure. Sure, it didn't change the face of comedy, but not every sitcom needs to do that. Most of them just try to make you laugh and most of them fail. 3rd Rock From the Sun makes me laugh, regardless of its reliance on physical comedy, the thing that makes critics loathe to respect it. And that's all that matters. Get past your reluctance to watch "low-brow" comedy and you'll probably find yourself laughing too.