Heartwarming / 3rd Rock from the Sun

• "Body & Soul & Dick." A professor no one liked dies suddenly, and Dick is tasked with giving a eulogy, to his discomfort. In one of the most poignant moments on the show, Dick uses physics to give the eulogy, to excellent effect. (Also a Funny Moment when Tommy, Sally & even Harry find it laughable.)
• In "Alien Hunter" Dick tries to pull a Heroic Sacrifice by telling Charlotte he's the only alien and Harry, Sally, and Tommy are innocent bystanders.
• In "The Big Giant Head Returns," Dick finally gets fed up with how the BGH has the nerve to just interrupt their lives and try to take Vicki away from Harry, knowing he'll probably be consigned to some horrible fate on the other Mars.
  • This is followed by Harry, touched by Dick willing to sacrifice himself for his sake, telling Vicki that she should be with "Stone" (the BGH's fake name), because, despite everything, he seems to genuinely love her, and Harry doesn't want Dick getting hurt.
• Dick doesn't mind when the BGH's niece, who's been posing as his wife, insults his looks and his personality. But when she insults his family, that's when he gets mad.
  • However, when Janet announces she's going to explore the world, Dick takes a moment to warn her out of concern that the world is a big place.
  • The episode has seen Dick separated from Sally, Harry and Tommy for months due to the previous season's cliffhanger. He kept hoping they'd come back and went back to the same spot they left from every night afterward.
• Showcasing how more considerate and sweet Dick becomes later on in the series, in season 5 episode "Gwen, Larry, Dick and Mary," Dick and Mary find themselves double-dating another couple (Gwen and Larry). When it becomes clear that they like Dick just fine, but don't like Mary because they think she's pretentious and boring, he begs them to give her another chance. After spending their whole next date awkwardly trying to tone down Mary's faults, he stops halfway through stopping her from telling a story and then demanding she go on despite Gwen and Larry's irritation with her. To top it off, after they leave, and Mary asks what the problem was, rather than tell her how much they didn't like her, he says he found them boring and pretentious to spare her feelings. They end up laughing about it.
• The final scene of the final episode, where Dick, Sally, Harry & Tommy are back in their car, in the parking lot where they first materialized.
  Dick: Lieutenant. Information officer. Transmitter.
  Sally, Harry & Tommy: High commander.
  Dick: My family.
  Sally: Dick, I'm leaking.
  • From earlier in this episode, we got to see what Dick and Mary's relationship is like once he no longer has to lie about being an alien and it's genuinely adorable how much healthier things became for them.
• It may be brief, but in "A Dick on One Knee" Harry is tasked with finding "something old, something new; something borrowed, and something blue", his second attempt is "Blind Joe", an old man who plays the blues that he borrowed from the Tip-Top Club. When Sally asks Harry what's new about him, Harry says Joe is his new friend.
• Sally in the maternity ward in "Selfish Dick" has an awfully cute line: "Look at all the new people!" Her entire little monologue after that is also very touching.
  Sally: [to the babies] Aw! Shh... Don't cry, sweetheart. This part's easy. Just wait till you have to choose a long distance carrier. I wish I could have started from scratch like you guys—knowing, but not knowing. Seeing, and then all at once forgetting. Enjoy it. Time here moves really fast.
• "Dr. Soloman's Traveling Alien Show": Due to receiving constant transmissions from the Big Giant Head, Harry has been sold to the circus as "Hargo the Alien", making him a smash success. Only issue: the transmissions Harry's been receiving are due to him not sending the Solomons' status report to the Big Giant Head, and as such, he decides to start shutting down Dick's brain. After talking to Dick (who manages to unintentionally talk Harry into a Jerkass Realization despite not know what's going on anymore), Harry can't bring himself to continue his act, and as such does an impromptu finale: contacting the Big Giant Head and sending in the status report, thus ending the act but saving Dick.
• When Tommy is soon to leave for college, he & Dick are going on one last joyride. They go checking out the various colleges and playing pranks, culminating in one where Dick betrays Tommy and locks him in the Dean's office all night. Tommy is caught, but instead of being expelled the Dean simply laughs it off. When Tommy confronts Dick about the betrayal, Dick just breaks down and admits how fond he is of Tommy and how much he really does love him, hes both scared of him leaving and what it will do to him after Tommy is off at school. Dick is selfish, ignorant and a jerk to everyone most of the time, but this shows his small but very deep sweet affectionate side very well, and it is one of the best scenes in the entire series.
• "36! 24! 36! Dick!":
  • One of the Venusians (played by Cindy Crawford) sincerely falls in love with Harry, and rebels against her leaders because of it. She's stunned to realize she's sincerely moved by a simple, cheap macaroni necklace he made for her, because he genuinely likes her. And in the end, he lets her go so she can leave Rutherford and get a well-paying, stable career in something she's remarkably good at: washer and dryer repair.
  • When it looks like all is lost for the Solomons and they're about to die, Dick remarks that, looking back at the last two years on Earth, he wouldn't change a thing.
    Tommy: We arrived on this planet together; it's only fitting we go out together.
  • In the end, when all the Venusians wind up stranded on Earth and wonder what they'll do now, Dick encourages them, assuring them that Earth is actually a really nice place to live, and that they, beautiful women, will do just fine. A rather nice gesture, considering they were trying to kill him five minutes ago.
• In one episode, Dick considers plastic surgery. Mary, who's spent the whole time trying to talk him out of it, tells him that she knows how he feels; a few years ago, she considered getting her nose fixed. Dick is utterly baffled, saying he loves Mary's nose and the way it scrunches up when she smiles... and her ears... and her eyes... It's a remarkably sweet scene, and given Mary's self-esteem issues, it's clear that what Dick's saying means the world to her.
  Dick: You're beautiful.
  Mary: So are you.
  Dick: I know!
• In "Indecent Dick", Tommy bringing soup to Alissa's door after he found out she was sick and how clearly touched Alissa is. Of course the scene is then played for laughs when Tommy acts awkward and embarrassed but it is still cute.
• Mr. Randall breaks up with Sally because he's fed up with her strange behaviour and their not having sex. Sally goes home in tears and Mary ends up comforting her with a bottle of wine. Mary eventually admits that she genuinely likes Sally as a person, and that she deserves better than some guy who tried to change her. Overlaps with a Funny Moment during the full exchange.
  Sally: I didn't know you liked me.
  Mary: Well, I do. You're a strong, opinionated, intelligent young woman. Unpredictable at times, a little scary, but hell, that's you!
  Sally: Wow, Dr. Albright, you're so nice. I always thought you were such a bitch.
  Mary: Oh, but I am. But hell, that's me.
• In a later episode, Harry gets together with Don's partner (played by Chyna) and their flirting is just plain fun to watch. Later on Vicki returns again and tries to get back with Harry, but he can't accept for the simple reason of, "I've got a girlfriend." Even if it was a one-episode relationship, seeing Harry being that faithful was quite sweet.