I Finally Confess to Having a Heart

It's very difficult for me to say I love something, and mean it they way it's supposed to mean. You know, like in that two-people-at-sunset kind of way; the look-deep-into-your-eyes-and-confess-your-soul kind of way; the standing-with-boombox-playing-"It's in Your Eyes"-outside-a-girl's-window kind of way.

It's not that I don't feel it from time to time, it's that I'm just hard-pressed to acknowledge it.

If going by how I react to celebrity crushes is any indication, I stop watching all the movies they are in because the love is so strong I feel like a stalker. (read: I can't handle emotion like a normal person).

Apparently, I like to live as a robot, which really only goes to support my "I wish I could be Data and date Data" theory about my love life.

But anyway, I digress. Here's my heartfelt confession of love:

I love 3rd Rock from the Sun. There. I said it. And if it's not going to return my love, so be it. It is better to love, than be loved, right? That was totally the moral to Moulin Rouge, right? (read: it wasn't)

Because Romeo and Juliet ends the way it does because of
Lurhmann, and not Shakespeare, right?

Seriously. I love this show. If you were to ask my favorite Science Fiction show is, I'd say 3rd Rock, which is odd seeing as that it is barely sci-fi.

Generally, when you think of sci-fi, it's in terms of what the future holds. It's your Terminator, War of the Worlds, and Star Trek. It's about hope, or despair, and the good stuff generally has both. Four people faking a family in Rutherfield, Ohio really shouldn't count as science fiction, especially when they are mostly just idiots and you can watch whole episodes without them mentioning the whole "we're on a mission to research Earth" premise. Really, it's about four people who are consistently stupid, which is just normal sitcom fodder.

But that's okay because it's Science Fiction where it counts, and I don't mean it's because it's about aliens. No, it's about using a common sci-fi trope in order to contest concepts we think are a given. It doesn't even matter how mind-blowingly obvious it is sometimes, if only because it's so hilarious:

Within the first four minutes it addresses standard issues like patriotism, and the myth of equality (whilst  turning it on it's head of course because they decide on creating a commune that turns fascist right quick). This is what good sci-fi is supposed to do. It takes something as standard as the alien, and analyzes everything we take for granted.

And it's beautiful. Better yet, it's hilarious.

And I love it. You may never hear me say I love something with such sincerity ever again, so take note. I love 3rd Rock from the Sun.

I love it so much I want to cosplay it even though no one would have any idea who I was.

It should surprise no one that this got zero results.

But what's even better is that it harkens back to its roots. I've always loved Futurama for episode titles like "I, Roommate" and "The Day the Earth Stood Stoopid", or its planets filled with Star Trek fans. 3rd Rock also slips us some jokes that are just for us sci-fi nerds.

Yes. I even watched the new Twilight Zone series
when I was a kid. No shame. No shame.

That's too say nothing of the fact that the movie Arthur almost saved the world from a being turned into a monkey amusement park by another alien race (while renaming all our states things like Opposablethumslyvania, Crapthrowerzona, DianeFassachussets, and Curious Georgia). Which, by the way, if you don't know me, Arthur is one of my favorite movies with a questionable moral at the end of the story.

This alone makes the show worth watching. (read: for at least one lonely girl in Colorado)

In any case, if you haven't seen it, or haven't seen it in a while, each series is going for around $5-8 on pretty much any website. That is ridiculously cheap for how much awesome you get. Offensively, so. But I'm going to try not to complain because I like being able to afford it.

Hey. Pretentious book-name drop!
IN FRENCH.