The BEST episodes of 3rd Rock from the Sun season 4
Every episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun season 4, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of 3rd Rock from the Sun season 4!
A Sitcom about aliens who look like earthlings (but can't quite get the hang of acting like them), and who observe human society from their vantage point of Rutherford, Ohio.
#1 - Dick vs. Strudwick
Season 4 - Episode 21 - Aired 5/11/1999
Dick's faculty nemesis, Dr. Vincent Strudwick, writes a physics book that's hailed as a work of genius. When Dick realizes that writing a better book would expose him as a superior alien being, he seeks another means of getting even, finally seizing on Strudwick's displeasure at learning that his teenage daughter Alissa is dating dreaded Solomon spawn Tommy. Dick manipulates Alissa to cause trouble between her and her father, and the conflict comes to a head at the taping of a TV panel show about Strudwick's book, which erupts into Jerry Springer-style fisticuffs. Meanwhile, Sally and Don, feeling "lonely" since their breakup, find themselves succumbing to "ex sex." Also, once Albright befriends a group of misfit Nobel laureates who are in town to hail the publication of Strudwick's book, she can't shake them -- they've imprinted on her like a litter of helpless kittens.
#2 - Dick's Big Giant Headache (1)
Season 4 - Episode 23 - Aired 5/25/1999
The Big Giant Head announces his plans to visit the Solomons in person to chastise them for their poor mission performance. Dick tells Sally to move back in, orders Harry to stop trying to father a baby with Vicki, and tries to prepare Mary for the arrival of his old "college chum," worrying privately that the supreme leader might not find her to have been a suitable use of his time. The family goes to the airport to meet the Big Giant Head (William Shatner), a drunken good-time charlie who's taken the name of "Stone Phillips," and who, in short order, moves in and takes over their lives. Dick quickly loses favor with Stone, who's unimpressed both by his choice of girlfriend and his leadership skills. Stone is, however, quite taken by everything about Sally, especially the length of her legs and the shape of her torso, and decides to make her the High Commander instead of Dick. Meanwhile, Harry keeps trying to avoid Vicki, but eventually he tells her that they need to cool the baby thi
#3 - Y2dicK
Season 4 - Episode 17 - Aired 3/16/1999
Dick, who's never figured out computers, decides it's time to get plugged in. He discovers e-mail and the internet, and withdraws completely from the physical world, relying on take-out food, chat rooms, and live video feeds, and shutting out people, fresh air, and sunlight. When Mary tries to drag him away, he knocks over a Big Gulp cup, shorting out his system. Venturing outside to find the fuse box, Dick realizes that his computer wasn't keeping him connected to the world -- it was keeping him separated. Sally and Tommy go to buy a new TV set, but the more they learn about the available technology, the less satisfied they are with each purchase they make, until they've upgraded themselves into near-bankruptcy. Sadder but wiser, they return their expensive audiovisual equipment to the store. Also, Harry's all for trying to have a baby with Vicki, until the whole medical-science part of it makes it impossible for him to get in the mood. He tells Vicki it's the natural way or no way, a
#4 - Dick's Big Giant Headache (2)
Season 4 - Episode 24 - Aired 5/25/1999
Reeling in the aftermath of his demotion, Dick has to get used to taking orders from everyone else in the crew -- even Harry -- a humiliating experience that makes it difficult for him to perform sexually. Even though she didn't want to believe the family's taunts about the reasons for her promotion, Sally finally realizes Stone only made her High Commander because of her looks. Stone makes a pass at Albright, who declines and tells Dick, who's psyched that Stone's changed his mind about Mary. Stone goes to the prom with Tommy and Alissa, where a drunken Stone dumps a punchbowl over Alissa's head, then serenades the promgoers -- including a bedazzled Vicki, who decided it was finally time to attend her junior prom -- with "Close To You." In the high school hallway, Stone encounters Vicki and "beams" her up to his "bachelor pod" for some lovin'. The next morning, Vicki turns up pregnant, and her pregnancy develops to full term in a matter of moments. Stone, who had been planning to make
#5 - Dick Solomon of the Indiana Solomons
Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 1/12/1999
Dick receives an invitation to a family reunion that was meant for someone else, but decides to put down 'roots' and pass himself off as Richard Solomon, the long-missing nephew of Abe and Florence Solomon in Indiana. But acquiring an extended family proves to have its drawbacks when Dick, Sally Harry and Tommy go to Indiana with Mary to meet their new relatives and discover the reason why the real Richard Solomon dropped out of sight 43 years ago. While Harry immediately clicks with crotchety Uncle Abe, Cousin Jacob is decidedly frosty to Dick. Meanwhile, Cousin Janine is more than frosty (she's downright freaked) when Tommy tries to get friendly with her. "We're very distant cousins," he wails. "You have no idea how distant we are."
#6 - Indecent Dick
Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 12/9/1998
When Playpen magazine arrives at Pendelton for a model search, the Solomons react to the issue of nudity in different ways. The idea intrigues Sally, who decides to pose---which infuriates Don, who chooses to cancel his lifetime subscription. As for Dick, he encourages Sally, but becomes apoplectic when he learns that Mary posed for art photos 20 years before. And Harry? He simply takes off his clothes. "I just wanted to find out if this whole clothes thing is just a big scam," he explains. Meanwhile, Tommy's overdressed: he wants to impress his new lab partner Alissa.
#7 - Paranoid Dick
Season 4 - Episode 14 - Aired 2/16/1999
Albright's feeling a little uncertain about her waning power at the college, and Dick eggs her on into full-blown paranoia. As a result, she gets caught breaking into another professor's office looking for evidence of a nonexistent conspiracy against her, and winds up losing her deanship. Meanwhile, Vicki Dubcek convinces Sally that the perfect thing to help her get over her breakup with Don is a weekend of riverboat gambling on the Cincinnati Queen. Vicki and Sally engage in the rituals of backstage flirtation with a seductive Neil Diamond impersonator. Harry manages to win big at gambling without getting hooked, but loses all of his winnings to the lure of the casino gift shop.
#8 - Dick and Taxes
Season 4 - Episode 12 - Aired 2/2/1999
After three years on the planet, the Solomons finally learn about an organization called the IRS. They also learn that they owe it $9500. What to do? Dick's idea: "We can lie." Dick's never paid taxes, and after trying to fill out the forms himself, he enlists Mary's help. When he sees how much he owes, he decides to be the only American ever to think of the brilliant idea of cheating on his taxes. When Dick gets an audit notice, Tommy has to fudge an explanation for what each family member has been doing for the past six years. The auditor, however, doesn't buy any of it -- even the "we're aliens" defense, which he's heard before. The Solomons agree to pay their hefty tax bill, and thank their lucky stars their true identities are still a secret. As part of the tax deception, Sally pretends she had a failed home business -- a hair salon -- but when she puts up the sign, women start pouring in. Sally enjoys the camaraderie and the gossip, but never quite gets the hang of cutting hair,
#9 - D3: Judgement Day
Season 4 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/11/1998
Dick decides to dump Jennifer and finagle his way back into Mary's heart as an uproarious three-part romantic misadventure concludes. Dick, who has been driven to distraction by Jennifer's allergies and constant rhyming, is in luck, at least as far as Mary is concerned: she's seen him with Jennifer and is willing to eat some crow to win him back. It would seem that Dick holds all the cards. Now all he has to do is play them. Meanwhile, Officer Don turns Sally on to the joys of bowling, and comes to wish that he hadn't.
#10 - I Am Dick Pentameter!
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/4/1998
Dick tells Mary he thinks they should see other people, and she laughingly agrees, not knowing he already has a candidate lined up--new officemate Jennifer. Dick is fascinated by Jennifer's intoxicating giggle, her adorable penchant for rhyming, and the brave way she copes with her numerous food allergies. Just as a furious Albright learns of Dick's new dalliance, he begins to grow less and less enchanted with Jennifer's eccentricities (particularly the rhyming), and to regret ever having ended things with Mary. Meanwhile, Sally, Harry, and Tommy question the limited functions of the kitchen and the living room, and decide to design an Uber-room with the best elements of each--"the Klivingtchen."
#11 - Dick 'The Mouth' Solomon
Season 4 - Episode 18 - Aired 4/6/1999
Sally meets a suave Italian-American man at a restaurant. He woos her, and when she learns he goes by the name of Sammy "The Butcher" Marchetti, she and Tommy are thrilled because they assume he's a mobster. Sammy asks Tommy to run errands for him, and Tommy's excited to be working as -- he assumes -- a bag man for the Mob. When Sally and Tommy learn that Sam's not actually a Mafioso but a real butcher, his appeal fades, and they both lose interest in him. Mary, concerned that she and Dick need to work on their communication skills, convinces him to go to a couples retreat. To her dismay, her good intentions get turned around as everyone there -- including Harry and Vicki, the poster children for public displays of affection -- embraces Dick for his openness, and criticizes Mary for her emotional unavailability.
#12 - Collect Call for Dick
Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/21/1998
After Dick almost bites into a "Fuzzy Buddy" in a fast-food restaurant burger, he becomes obsessed with the collectibles. Meanwhile, Tommy goes overboard on school spirit when he becomes the basketball team's mascot. The Solomons confront the collector mentality when they discover Fuzzy Buddies -- highly collectible small plush animal toys. Sally enjoys the thrill of the hunt and the prospects for financial rewards, Harry just thinks they're cute, but for Dick it's deeper -- he enjoys the sensation of collecting until it gets to be like a drug for him, and his family and friends have to do an intervention. In an effort to instill "pep" into Tommy, the basketball coach forces him to become the team mascot, "Hootie the Owl." Initially contemptuous, Tommy finds that folks (especially cute cheerleaders) dig him when he's in costume, and the power goes to his head. When the team loses, Tommy, high on school spirit, tackles the coach, landing him in the principal's office.
#13 - Two-Faced Dick
Season 4 - Episode 10 - Aired 1/5/1999
The Big Giant Head grants Sally's three-year-old request for a "gender reassignment" - and switches her body with Dick's. Meanwhile, Harry takes over Happy Doug's bar while Doug is on vacation. Responding to a three-year-old request from Sally that she be given a male body, the Big Giant Head switches Sally's body with Dick's. Each of them has to cope with all the thorny details of gender reassignment, including such specifics as how to deal with men's catcalls, and where to find cute shoes in Dick's size. Plus, each of them has to successfully maintain the other's romantic relationship. They each get as far as a kiss, but before things go any further, their request to switch back is granted, leaving them both far more knowledgeable about what it's like to be a member of the opposite sex. Also, vacationing Doug leaves Harry in charge of the bar, which turns ugly when some tough-looking bikers start hanging out there. Just when Harry and Tommy have decided that the bikers aren't such ba
#14 - Happy New Dick!
Season 4 - Episode 9 - Aired 12/15/1998
As the New Year approaches, Dick is in despair because he feels he hasn't accomplished anything all year. Meanwhile, Don gives Sally a necklace, then earrings, for Christmas but she wants more. Dick, pondering the significance of New Year's Eve, fears that he's done nothing of consequence in 1998. When he mistakenly thinks it's midnight a few minutes early, he embraces Mary and dances with her in the snow -- a perfect moment that he later realizes was not only his most meaningful act of 1998, but also a lovely way to start 1999. Harry hires Larry and Mrs. DeGuzman to work at Happy Doug's Bar with him, but they're both so dang lazy, he fires them both on New Year's Eve. Officer Don gets upset that Sally takes advantage of his nice-guy nature, and he lays down the law -- her cutesy, little-girl cajoling will no longer work on him. Sally realizes that with her feminine appeal comes a great deal of responsibility for using it benevolently, and she vows to do better in the New Year. Tommy,
#15 - The House That Dick Built
Season 4 - Episode 15 - Aired 2/23/1999
Dick feels like his control over the mission is falling to pieces when Sally decides to move out, and Harry considers having a baby with Vicki Dubcek. Dick tries to sabotage Sally's attempts to find a new place, but Sally decides to rent the apartment over Mrs. Dubcek's garage, Dick breaks in, posing as an intruder, to scare Sally into moving back home, but she beats the tar out of him. Meanwhile, Harry's debating whether or not he should have a baby with Vicki because he's unsure, both of his and Vicki's parenting abilities, and of the consequences of human/alien interbreeding. The two of them drop in on the house where Tommy's helping Alissa baby-sit so Harry can take the baby for a "test drive." When he sees how good Vicki is with the baby, he knows everything's going to be fine. Also, Tommy tries to figure out whether or not he's officially Alissa's "boyfriend."
#16 - Superstitious Dick
Season 4 - Episode 16 - Aired 3/2/1999
Dick receives a chain letter, but hesitates to discard it when he sees all of the ill fortune that befalls Mary after she scoffs and tosses hers out. When Dick does throw his away, he worries that he won't receive the prestigious physics grant he's applied for, and becomes obsessed with oddball charms and superstitious behaviors he thinks will bring him luck. What he doesn't realize until too late is that his weird behavior itself has caused him to lose the grant. Sally discovers the wonders of the Hardware Stop Superstore with the help of hunky and extremely competent employee Justin, and begins concocting problems just to spend time with him. Harry, whose orange shirt looks exactly like the Hardware Stop uniform, is baffled when other customers keep asking him to help them make keys, weigh bags of nails, and answer hardware questions. Also, chagrined that Alissa seems to have a massive crush on the Rutherford Ice Hogs' star hockey player, Tommy becomes concerned that he's not manly e
#17 - Near Dick Experience
Season 4 - Episode 22 - Aired 5/18/1999
When Sally, Harry, and Tommy narrowly miss being crushed by a chandelier at a restaurant, their near-death experience fills them with a new reverence for life -- and fills Dick with jealousy that he wasn't able to share this deep experience. The newly enlightened trio volunteers at a soup kitchen for the homeless, and Dick signs up for a wilderness hiking trip with Mary, hoping like the dickens that he'll lose his footing and find serenity via a near-death experience of his own. While Dick is trying desperately to have his own near-miss with death, the others learn that their new appreciation for every leaf, every bird, and every fellow man is fading rapidly with the passage of every hour. Sally, Tommy, and Harry have just about returned to being their blasé, uncaring selves just as Dick joins them on the roof, bursting with news about how he's just managed to escape death's clutches in a car accident. Now Dick's found a new love for life, but he's still the odd man out.
#18 - Power Mad Dick
Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/7/1998
When Mary is named the new dean, Dick assumes her power also applies to him, and wastes no time in firing his nemesis from the lunchroom, Lucy -- who immediately files a grievance. Meanwhile, an excited Sally prepared to lose her virginity to Don, but finds herself unable to discuss the event with anyone.
#19 - Doctor Solomon's Traveling Alien Show
Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/23/1998
Discovering that Harry has been kidnapped, the other aliens search for him, somewhat handicapped by the fact that the Big Giant Head is punishing them for not filing their reports by shutting down Dick's higher brain functions.
#20 - Citizen Solomon
Season 4 - Episode 19 - Aired 4/29/1999
Now that Sally's moved out and won't clean for them anymore, the male Solomons decide that it's time to get a maid. They hire Mary's cleaning woman, Cathy, an inscrutable woman who makes their place sparkle. Overwhelmed by the results, the Solomons begin thinking of Cathy less as help and more as a treasured family member -- despite the fact that Cathy gives them no encouragement to do so. Meanwhile, Sally, jealous of the guys' affection for Cathy, decides that she'll turn the tables -- if Cathy can "steal" Sally's family, Sally can steal Cathy's. Finally, Cathy, tired of the Solomons' intrusion into her private life, quits. Also, Tommy joins the staff of the school paper and is made editor, displaying a penchant for unearthing scandals both real and imagined. Busy with his new duties, Tommy assigns ex-girlfriend August to review Alissa in "My Fair Lady." August's review is unflattering but honest, and Tommy, true to his journalistic ideals, decides to run it. When confronted by a tear
#21 - Alien Hunter
Season 4 - Episode 20 - Aired 5/4/1999
A mysterious woman, Charlotte, turns up in Dick's life, claiming first to be auditing his class, then to be writing an article about him, then to be an "intellectual groupie." She charms Sally, Tommy, and Harry, who are happy to oblige when she offers to help plan the surprise birthday party that Dick has demanded they throw him. Dick is too busy having his ego stroked, and the family is too busy being grateful for her help, to wonder what Charlotte's real story is -- which they regret when they learn she's an alien hunter, come to dissect Dick's brain with the help of her hulking son, Ned. Although Charlotte's called all the invitees to tell them the party's canceled, they begin showing up anyway, interrupting the skull-cutting process. Ned ties them all up in Mrs. Dubcek's basement. Sally, Harry, Tommy, Don, and the others run upstairs just as the FBI arrives to capture Charlotte, a well-known crackpot who has mistakenly thought any number of innocent citizens to be aliens. The Solom
#22 - Feelin' Albright
Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/14/1998
When Sally learns that she's not Don's first girlfriend, she is consumed with retrospective jealousy and determines to track down his exes. Meanwhile, Dick learns what it's like to be the dean's boyfriend when everyone ignores him at a function except the other "faculty wives". He decides to prove his worth by staging a fashion show to raise money for repairs to the campus statue, but succeeds in raising only $100 above expenses. Meanwhile, Harry and Tommy "creep out" Mrs. Dubcek by setting themselves up in business with a lemonade stand.
#23 - Sally Forth
Season 4 - Episode 13 - Aired 2/9/1999
When Sally tells Officer Don she can't take living with Dick, Harry, and Tommy anymore, he assumes that she wants him to propose. Sally realizes, however, that what she really wants is to start living as an independent woman, and they tearfully break off their engagement. When Dick has a tenant-landlord dispute with the Dubceks, he casts Harry out of the family for consorting with the enemy. The situation escalates to the point where Dick, frozen and filthy, is reduced to squatting in his apartment without benefit of heat or lights. The feud ends when Dick realizes he was so preoccupied that he didn't pay attention to an important milestone in Sally's life -- her all-too-brief engagement. When Alissa, the girl of his dreams, gets detention, Tommy works hard to get punished as well, in the hopes that it will provide him with the perfect opportunity to ask her out.
#24 - What's Love Got To Do, Got To Do With Dick?
Season 4 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/28/1998
Dick, frustrated because busy dean Mary never seems to have time for him, finds himself increasingly enchanted with his new officemate, Jennifer. Confused by his feelings, he vows to resist the attraction, but it's too much for him -- they kiss. Sally tries to fix Nina up with Don's friend Eric, then takes it as a personal insult when it doesn't turn out to be a love match. She schemes to bring them back together, but the only passion she manages to ignite between them is their rabid dislike for each other -- hardly a satisfying victory for Sally. Tommy fixes up the "Love Tester" machine at the bar where Harry works, then is miffed that he can't make it go higher than "Cold Fish."