History Headscratchers / ThirdRockFromTheSun

* In one episode, they have only just figured out that people have different races and that there are sometimes tensions between different factions. Dick hears about black pride. Trying to understand this, Dick naturally assumes he should have "white pride"...which doesn't go well, because he doesn't understand that "white pride" rallies are threatening and hateful. At the end of the episode, he says something about them burning a lower case t. How does a group of aliens sent to study human civilization not know what a cross is, and by extension not know much to anything about religion? Seems like that would be a huge part of trying to understand what motivates humans.

* All the aliens have varying complex layers of neurosis and can be considered as having personality and cognitive disorders. Dick probably existed somewhere on the Autistic spectrum, with a secondary diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Sally had Adult ADD and a histrionic personality disorder. She also had anger management problems relating to her nature as a warrior, and initially a fear of intimacy, though she got over that. Harry was, like Dick, on the Spectrum. Tommy was the most "neurotypical" of the group, but he clearly suffered from a sense of lost dignity for having been reduced to a teenager. In the early episodes he was coping with loss. He is however ReallySevenHundredYearsOld and suffers from some memory loss, explaining why certain background research on Earth was vitally lacking.
** What part of this is a headscratcher...?

** When Dick confesses to "[[Creator/JohnCleese Liam Neesom]]" that he's also an alien, Liam asks him to open his mouth. Dick does, and Liam takes a look and says something to the effect of, "Well, so you are." This hints that their bodies may still be a teensy bit alien.

** She wakes in an unfamiliar place next to a car she's never seen before and a minor head injury. She would probably think she's been attacked and suffered some minor brain damage. How's that for fridge horror?

* All the aliens have varying complex layers of neurosis and can be considered as having personality and cognitive disorders. Dick probably existed somewhere on the Autistic spectrum, with a secondary diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Sally had Adult ADD and a histrionic personality disorder. She also had anger management problems relating to her nature as a warrior, and initially a fear of intimacy, though she got over that. Harry was, like Dick, on the Spectrum. Tommy was the most "neurotypical" of the group, but he clearly suffered from a sense of lost dignity for having been reduced to a teenager. In the early episodes he was coping with loss.

[[redirect:JustBugsMe/{{Ptitleg25tr1bo}}]]

* Tommy was in HighSchool in the first season and he graduated at the end of the fifth season. So was he held back a year then? Isn't he supposed to be a genius?
** Possibly his supergenius meant he was years ahead but they wouldn't let him to graduate until he came of age. The Solomons could even have been using the age pretext to keep him in high school for a longer period to learn more about that most confusing of human specimens- the teenager.
*** High school can cover five grades in some places, too.
*** He started high school ''during'' the first season, then graduated during the fifth, which is... four years later. Do the math.
*** IIRC he graduated at the end of the fourth season, then waited a few episodes before going to college. For much of the fifth season he was in college.
* Pretty darn small living quarters for four people.
** This does get {{Lampshaded}} a fair bit, particularly with the mentions of Harry not having a bedroom and instead sleeping on the washing machine. In the {{pilot}}, they were impressed by the place due it being larger than their car.
* The Solomons have just taken over human bodies, right? And, to the best of my knowledge, they brought nothing "alien" with them. So what evidence could their possibly be that they're aliens? Sure, they might be insanely eccentric, but there's no evidence--biological or otherwise--that they're extraterrestrials. So why are they so scared of being found out?
** Because [[RuleOfFunny it's funny]].
** Much of their understanding of Earth comes from pop culture. Thus, they've seen enough movies where [[WeComeInPeaceShootToKill good aliens get it]] to make them WrongGenreSavvy.
** Harry also has a transceiver inside his head if I remember correctly, which was almost discovered in one episode.
** I also don't think there is any evidence that their bodies are 100% human. After all, their consciousness still exists, so perhaps whatever part of their purple tube responsible for consciousness is still inside the brain somewhere.
** They live in a world where conspiracy theories about aliens are as common as venereal diseases. They have every reason to be wary. Especially considering that in one episode such a conspiracist ''does'' catch onto them and kidnaps them.
* Am I the only one to notice this (well, Cracked noticed it too), but during the series final [[spoiler:Spoiler Dick erases Mary's memories of him so that she wouldn't be heartbroken when he left her]], first of all, how powerful is this, will she just forget him or the rest of the Solomoms as well? More disturbingly, what's going to happen to Mary? She's [[spoiler: lost all memories of Dick and possibly the other Solomons, so what happens when someome brings them up in conversation? People will think something's seriously wrong with her when they find out that she honestly can't remember her boyfriend and ex-fiancee of the past five or six years.]]
** In an alternate ending, though, he changes his mind and beams back down, abducts her, and beams back up.
** Yeah, but is that actually canon? It is after all, an alternate ending.
----
<<|ItJustBugsMe|>>

* They live in a world where conspiracy theories about aliens are as common as venereal diseases. They have every reason to be wary. Especially considering that in one episode such a conspiracist ''does'' catch onto them and kidnaps them.