List of 3rd Rock from the Sun characters
Below is a list of characters in the U.S. television comedy series 3rd Rock from the Sun:
Cast
Main characters
Dr. Richard "Dick" Solomon
Though the High Commander and head of the expedition to Earth, Dick is often the most childlike member of the group, being the youngest of the crew, despite being the oldest family member. Much of the behavioral or societal-based troubles faced by the crew in their mission while on Earth frequently arise from some juvenile act perpetrated by Dick, troubles which in turn are forced to be overcome by the entire troupe with a great deal of reluctance.Salome "Sally" Solomon
With a rank of lieutenant, Sally is the security officer and second-in-command. She has been called Dick's sister, but was sometimes introduced as Tommy's sister earlier in the series, and, on one occasion, claimed to be his mother, although never Dick's daughter and certainly not his spouse; failure to clarify the exact relationship between Tommy, Harry, and Sally led to humorous confusion whenever either Harry or Sally attempted to act as Tommy's guardian. Sally was chosen to be the woman because she apparently lost some sort of contest and was not too thrilled about it; while the alien species is described as asexual, Sally seems to have a harder time trying to figure out womanhood than the others do manhood. She files a request to be made male early in the mission, though later decides she liked being a woman. A later episode had Dick and her switching bodies on orders from the Big Giant Head, which caused much confusion both on their parts, as they had gotten used to their respective genders while on Earth, as well as the other characters, as they could not get used to Sally acting like Dick and vice versa.Harold S. "Harry" Solomon
Originally, Harry was not part of the mission. He happened to go for the ride because an extra seat was available. Later, it is revealed that he has a chip in his head that allows The Big Giant Head to communicate the crew. When this happens, he shakes violently and gurgles while standing in a squatting position, with his arms at 90° angles, declaring "Incoming message from The Big Giant Head!". These broadcasts always end with a sneeze, with Harry resuming to normal and having no idea what had just been transmitted. He poses as Dick and Sally's brother, and Tommy's uncle. He is often known to be the simplest family member. He is considered by the others to be dim-witted, leading to him being impulsive and misunderstanding people. However, his gentle nature and unassuming manner makes it easier for him to get along with humans than it does for the other Solomons. While the rest of the family considers him to be unattractive, he easily has more romantic success than them combined. He is often mocked for his inability to open his eyelids properly, requiring him to tilt his head back to look at people his own height.Thomas Alfred "Tommy" Solomon
Information officer and third-in-command behind Sally. Even though he is the oldest and smartest of the entire crew, Tommy plays the role of Dick's adolescent son. The Solomons never remember to come up with a cover story for why Tommy has no mother, and are always caught off-guard when asked. It is implied that Tommy and Dick are long-time friends, but their roles as child and parent puts serious strain on them both. Tommy struggles to cope with his teenage body's ever-changing hormones, something that he has never encountered before. He tends to be bluntly honest, and does not understand he has done wrong until someone has a negative emotional reaction. He has an on-off relationship with August which is usually frustrated by his lack of emotional awareness, and attraction to almost any fertile female he encounters. Gordon-Levitt left the series as a primary character, only appearing as a recurring character in just over half the episodes of season six. In the show, this is explained by Tommy's graduating from high school and moving out to college. In the final episode, he has an unusually emotional reaction when he discovers that the mission is over and they must leave earth.Dr. Mary Albright
Dick's colleague and on-and-off girlfriend, Mary is aware that Dick is an insensitive idiot, but appreciates his joie de vivre and quirkiness. Reference is often made to the insecurity caused by her bad parenting, and the fact that before Dick arrived, she was known for sleeping around, and had even been nicknamed "Dr. Slutbunny".Officer Donald Leslie "Don" Orville
Officer Donald Leslie "Don" Orville is portrayed by Wayne Knight and works as a Police Sergeant in the fictional town of Rutherford, Ohio, though he is consistently referred to as "Officer" throughout the series. He is often shown to be somewhat incompetent. In The Physics of Being Dick, he lets Dick interrogate a criminal with him, despite it being highly illegal. When he is paged, he never appears to know what any of the crime codes mean.Don is known to make blunders, for example, in Stuck With Dick, when he thinks Mary's house has been broken into, he bursts in through the front door shouting "Ass right there, freeze hole!" In Dick's Big Giant Headache, Part II, he also claims to be always losing things, adding "I even lost a whole dead guy once”.
Throughout the series, he maintains an on-off relationship with Sally Solomon, a strong woman able to persuade him to do anything she wants. As an ongoing gag, one of the pair is always able to tell when the other has entered the room, where Don will gaze at Sally lustfully and say "Hello Sally" and she gazes at him in a sultry way and answers, "Hi Don." Another running gag for the pair is that their conversations tend to be somewhat dramatic, and reminiscent of an old film noir 1950s crime drama.
As the final season draws to a close, he hides in a frozen food freezer during the robbery of a local store, admitting that he is a coward who only joined the police force because he thought he'd be safe around all the other officers. He subsequently retires from the Rutherford Police Department to open a muffin shop before being convinced to re-enlist. Eventually, Don is rehired at the rank of Police Officer.
Mamie Dubcek
Mrs. Mamie Dubcek is the landlady who rents an attic apartment to the Solomon family for the duration of the series.Mrs. Dubcek lives below the Solomon family and is portrayed as a loose and carefree woman who is prone to having many sexual partners. For this reason, she often acts as a bizarre and unlikely guide for the Solomons in handling problems in their love lives.
Mrs. Dubcek's daughter Vicki is introduced in the Thanksgiving episode, Gobble, Gobble, Dick, Dick. During this episode, Vicki is established as a love interest for Harry, and as the series progresses, the pair consider having a baby together, before the Big Giant Head intervenes and impregnates Vicki himself. Mrs. Dubcek also has an unnamed son, as mentioned in the Season 2 episode, My Mother the Alien. She apparently has an illegitimate granddaughter named Melanie, possibly from her aforementioned unnamed son, in the Season 2 episode, Will Work for Dick.
Although Mrs. Dubcek is unmarried throughout the course of the series, she often refers to former husbands. In the episode Dick Like Me she describes her ethnicity as "a little Czech, a little Romanian; I'm your basic Slavic mutt."
Nina Campbell
Nina is the professional assistant of Dr. Mary Albright and Dr. Dick Solomon at the fictional Pendelton State University. At times, she and Dr. Albright are friends, while at others they seem to dislike each other. She stated in the episode "Dick, Who's Coming To Dinner" that she is a student of Pendelton.Nina does not usually get on with Dick but eventually he grows on her. She quits working for him in the episode "Will Work for Dick", which causes him a great deal of angst and resulting in his hiring and firing Harry. He convinces her to return to him in the end of the episode.
Sally tends to regard Nina and Vicki Dubcek as her two best friends and is often seen asking them for advice and discussing her problems. In one episode, she moves in with Nina and they share an Odd Couple-like relationship until Sally moves back to the loft.
Nina is sarcastic in dealing with both Mary and Dick and was particularly angry when Mary's promotion left her with just Dick to manage. Despite this, Nina can be kind to both of them, particularly to Mary whom she encourages to be more firm with Dick. It was Nina who encouraged Mary to stop tormenting Dick and go out with him in the episode "See Dick Run".
Recurring characters
Dr. Judith Draper
Judith Draper is a fictional character in 3rd Rock from the Sun. She is the professor of Women's Studies at the fictional Pendelton State University. She appeared in a promotional video for Pendelton, alongside Dick's son Tommy after Dick and Mary, the original stars of the video, sabotaged the entire production.Little is shown about Judith's life, as she is usually seen in purely academic situations, such as in the office or at Pendelton staff meetings or parties. She is known for her husky and unrestrained laugh after she makes a joke, although nobody else laughs at her jokes. She generally speaks in monotone.
Judith was shown to be neurotic, cynical, and possibly a closeted lesbian. She claimed to have a boyfriend named Trent, but Mary believes that he's imaginary. She admitted that she once believed there was a hidden camera in the ladies restroom at Pendelton, and even went as far as to dismantle the ceiling tiles in her search for it.
August Leffler
August Leffler is Tommy's first steady girlfriend. She has a habit of demanding a lot of Tommy while not always giving anything in return. However, he attempts to break up with her a couple of times to pursue other women. They continue to hang out together until she decides to move on. She confirms this in the fourth-season episode "Citizen Solomon" when confronted by Tommy. This is part of a story arc that involves all the aliens breaking up with their significant others. However, while the other broken relationships are ultimately resolved, Tommy and August's is not. In the fourth season, Tommy begins dating Alissa Strudwick, who soon takes August's place on the show.In the episode "Just Your Average Dick", August reveals that her family is of Dutch ancestry; her grandparents, Lucien and Mona, emigrated to the United States on a schooner in 1852.
August is an icy and disdainful female, a scholar and a feminist. She tended to play games with Tommy, making sure he would come at her beck and call. Like Tommy, August was a studious high schooler, but she was also contemptuous of prettier girls whom she regarded as shallow and unintelligent. She was known for being able to easily manipulate Tommy and was clearly the one in charge of their relationship, treating him as more of a pet than a boyfriend. For instance, in her first episode "Lonely Dick," she told Tommy, who was unsure when it would be appropriate to be physically intimate with her, that she would "decide that as we go along."
August was often shown to have a lot of the same highbrow interests as Tommy does, and her perceived intellectual superiority over him, yet this seemed to give her a degree of elitism. She was also known for her rather quaint neo-feminist views, such as her belief, stated in "I Brake for Dick," that cosmetics are a way for men to "decorate the women they own and turn them into vacuous playthings." She seemed to also have similarly unusual opinions about other topics.
August eventually left Tommy due to her annoyance with what she regarded as his immaturity. She was seeing another boy, Joe, behind his back. August appeared in two fourth-season episodes after Tommy began dating Alissa, the first of which was "Citizen Solomon". In the following episode, "Alien Hunter", she appeared as a guest at Dick's birthday party, but didn't have any lines. Her appearance in this episode wasn't explained.