3rd Rock From the Sun: Season 05 (1999)

Member Rating:

The riotous conclusion of the fantasy sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun's fourth season has a big spillover effect at the beginning of Season Five. The Solomon "family", a group of aliens in human form who've come to earth on a fact-finding mission, are relieved to discover that the baby borne by Harry Solomon's (French Stewart) earthling girl-friend Vicki (Jan Hooks) is human, despite her having been impregnated by the Solomon's extraterrestrial leading, the Big Giant Head (who in his own human form is a dead ringer for William Shatner!). But things haven't quite returned to normal yet: Overwhelmed by her experience, Vicki has threatened to take her story about the Solomons' alien status to the tabloids (too bad she didn't give birth to a bat-baby, or she'd make Page One). Season highlights include such episodes as "Dial M for Dick", in which the Solomons takes an interactive murder mystery staged at a mansion a bit too seriously; "Dick Who's Coming to Dinner", wherein the aliens come face to face with the ugly specte of racism for the first time; "Sex and the Sally" which finds Harry Solomon and his teenaged-looking cohort Tommy Solomon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) becoming novice panhandlers for fun and profit; and a shameless a spoof of the 1973 PBS documentary An American Family, in which the Solomons become the subjects of a documentary filmed by Dick's human lady friend Mary Albright (Jane Curtin)--forcing them to concoct bizarre "cover stories" for their otherworldy behavior. Best of all, William Shatner makes two encore appearances in "The Big Giant Head Returns", in which he is determined to reclaim his son from Vicki whether she likes it or not; and in the season finale, wherein the Big Giant Head and Vicki have somehow become man and wife (much to his dismay!), Harry prepares to re-enter the dating scene, and Sally helpfully tries to repair the alien-human romance between Tommy and his sweetie Alyssa (Larisa Oleynik). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi