THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 2, 1996 TAG: 9512300052
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
IF JOHN LITHGOW and his band of space travelers visit Earth again, they'll disguise themselves as ducks. On this trip, they've taken human form, and so far it's been lousy except for the orgasms.
In the NBC sitcom ``3rd Rock From the Sun,'' the aliens are astounded to learn that their bodies leak fluids, body parts get stuck in zippers and they can't turn their heads around to lick their backs. Pop-up Kleenex dazzle them.
They speak the truth about everything and everybody because nobody ever taught them to tell white lies.
``3rd Rock From the Sun,'' which has been waiting to get on the air for months, finally makes it to NBC at 8:30 p.m. Jan. 9. You've seen this alien-out-of-water plot line before in such shows as ``Mork and Mindy'' and ``My Favorite Martian.''
What makes ``3rd Rock From the Sun'' different is that in the 1990s, the network censors allow the writers to get away with a lot more. There were so many breast jokes in the first three episodes, I lost count.
Typical crisis in this series:
Alien named Harry: ``Help! I can't see through my eyelids.''
Alien named Sally: ``Open them.''
Alien named Harry: ``Oh, they're manual!''
While making up hamburger patties, the aliens are horrified to learn they have their fingers in the flesh of a former living thing.
``I have dead cow on my hands? E-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e!''
In an aside guaranteed to offend feminists, the alien played by Kristen Johnston assumes the shape of an Earth woman because she lost the draw. ``The aliens have taken a good look at this society and determined that women on Earth still get the thin end of the wedge,'' Lithgow said when he met with TV writers not long ago.
Let the PMS jokes roll.
``3rd Rock From the Sun'' is one of a handful of new shows scheduled to premiere in network TV's second season between now and March, when Don Johnson's new cop show comes to CBS. That network has decided viewers will buy talk-show host Montel Williams as the lead in a drama series, ``Matt Waters,'' which starts on CBS at 9 Wednesday night.
It's been launched with hardly any hype or fanfare.
Here's the premise: Williams plays a former Navy SEAL who teaches science in a high school with some unruly and even dangerous students. It's not much of a stretch for Williams, who was once a Navy officer with an assignment in Norfolk.
Mini-review: Williams can't act. Has that stopped Chuck Norris? Both men do enough to keep the plots moving. ``Matt Waters'' has a shot despite the fact CBS has done nothing to promote the show.
Right after Montel crashes prime time Wednesday night, CBS returns the not-spooky-enough-for-me ``American Gothic'' to its schedule at 10. This show starring Gary Cole nearly expired in a Friday night time slot.
Now it's back at midweek. Merylyn Temple (Sarah Paulson), who was done in by the evil sheriff (Cole) in the first show, wills herself back to life in this week's episode. This series is a bargain-basement ``The X-Files.''
ABC, which once had rights to ``3rd Rock From the Sun,'' and which will die if that show develops into another must-see series on NBC, trots out the sitcom ``Champs'' on Jan. 9 at 9:30 p.m. Timothy Busfield, Ed Marinaro and Kevin Nealon play three ex-high school jocks who can't let go of the past.
This sitcom is getting an unusual amount of attention for two reasons. It is written and produced by Gary David Goldberg, who has done good work in the past with ``Brooklyn Bridge'' and ``Family Ties.'' This is also the first TV show from DreamWorks, the new studio formed by Steven Spielberg and friends.
Mini-review: Busfield and co-star Ashley Crow have a ``Home Improvement'' thing going. But this is essentially buddy TV and will rise or fall on how much viewers can take of Busfield and his mates re-playing a high school basketball game.
Like CBS, ABC this month is also moving a show, ``Murder One,'' that didn't catch on in its former time slot. The drama from Steven Bochco flies again Monday at 10 p.m., preceded by a five-minute synopsis of the first eight hours - the long, long playing out of one homicide.
In ``3rd Rock From the Sun,'' Lithgow's co-stars include Jane Curtin, who knows about playing aliens from her role as a ``Saturday Night Live'' Conehead. In this series, Curtin is cast not as a visitor from space but as an Earth person, a college professor who gets Lithgow's juices stirring.
The aliens don't understand why they feel like they do - why they get ill with the flu or have feelings for the opposite sex. As their fevers rise, they shiver and moan, ``Why did we choose bodies that decay so easily? We should have come as ducks.''
Next time, perhaps.
Lithgow told the TV press that in the past he turned his nose up at all offers to do a weekly TV series. ``I had always looked at doing a television series as an anathema,'' he said. ``But after the producers pitched the story of these four aliens to me, I saw the farce in it and decided it would be a wonderful thing to do.
``People are accustomed to seeing science-fiction characters by now. But most of science-fiction is gravely serious, not anything remotely funny. We show that there is something funny to be made out of futuristic fantasy.''
And, said Lithgow, this gives him a chance to leave behind the villainous roles he's been playing in films of late. ``I'm in danger of becoming a parody of myself,'' he said.
Mini-review of ``3rd Rock From the Sun'': There's nothing here you haven't seen or heard before in sitcoms about folks who aren't from your neighborhood. Too many one-liners about bodily functions in a 8:30 sitcom might upset parents. by CNB