In the irreverent tradition of My Favorite Martian and Mork and Mindy, 3rd Rock from the Sun stars John Lithgow as the High Commander of an alien investigative team sent to Earth on a mission to learn everything about humans. The series garnered 31 Emmy nominations and eight wins, including three for John Lithgow.

The elite team arrive in our world completely naive, but ready to analyse and experience all facets of the human condition. Already fish-out-of water, they find further conflict as the human forms to which they were assigned, are not exact matches to their inner nature.

Dick (John Lithgow), far from being a wise and fatherly figurehead, is arrogant, self-absorbed, petulant, faddish, and often downright foolish. Inside Sally’s (Kristen Johnston) glamorous form lives the weapons and security officer: uncouth, swaggering, and macho. Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the oldest of the group, is morphed into a teenager, his former wisdom at odds with the strange and often humiliating life of a teenage boy. Only the oddball of the group, Harry, seems comfortable with Earth — yet he is the weirdest of them all, particularly when his built-in "radio" function takes unexpected control over his body.

From this bizarre vantage point of innocents seeing everything for the first time, 3rd Rock from the Sun provides us with a smart, but often silly look at our taboos and traditions with a childlike inquisitive logic and an impeccably paced humorous twist.