Plot Twists
Initially, the only reference to the aliens' true forms is a comment made in the first episode, when upon discovering that human heads cannot swivel to 180 degrees, Dick queries: "How do they lick their backs?". As time went on, the show began to intersperse concrete references to the aliens' nature and their home world which played a role in affecting the show's plot. They usually described their original bodies as "gelatinous purple tubes" that lacked sex organs or most of the forms of physical definition that humans possess. In fact, when Sally asks why she had to be the woman, Dick reminds her why, telling her "it's because you lost."
Evidently, individuals in their species are so near-identical to each other that the Solomons were unaware of the concept of race or ethnicity, and had never invented one for themselves, leading them to attempt to choose one (a source of humor since the Solomons all appear quite white), eventually deciding that they are Jewish because of their surname (the Solomons took their name from Solomon Trucking; a Solomon truck was the first thing they saw while on Earth), which was implied to them by Mrs. Dubcek referring to her third husband as "one of your people ... you know, Jewish!"; and in one episode, they said that they come from Peru in South America.
Occasionally, the Solomons would encounter or think they encountered other extraterrestrials — the most long-lasting such gag being the Solomons' belief that Jell-O is an offshoot of a hostile, amorphous, carnivorous species they have often encountered, prompting them to go into hysterics whenever they see it served and attempt to destroy it. Their first brief encounter with snow was believed to have been attacks from a swarm of albino brain chiggers.
The name of the Solomons' home planet (if they indeed have one) is never revealed throughout the course of the series; in the show's dialogue, it is referred to as simply "The Home Planet". It is located in a barred spiral galaxy on the Cepheus-Draco border. Major twists in the plot, often shown in the various season finales, tended to involve contact with the home planet, involving their superiors' ongoing disapproval at the Solomons' antics and their becoming a laughingstock among their peers.
Read more about this topic: 3rd Rock From The Sun, Overview
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)