John Cleese puts his zaniness to good use in a two-part guest shot as a new professor who's even nuttier than Dick. And smarter. He's hotshot Dr. Liam Neesam, and he's a little too good at everything he does. He makes his first appearance in Part 1, as Albright (Curtin) is getting fed up with the fact that Dick - and the rest of the Solomons, for that matter - are "weird". "It's like being around the Addams Family", she moans. So Dick sets out to make his brood "average", and succeeds so completely that Albright finds him boring. Enter the off-kilter Dr. Neesam, who she thinks is kind of charming.
3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN is an inspired half-hour comedy series farcically dealing with the human condition set in the fictional city of Rutherford, Ohio. This gentle-hearted series stars John Lithgow as the High Commander of an investigative team sent to Earth on a mission to learn everything about humans and their so-called advanced civilization. Described by its producers as 'Carl Sagan meets the Marx Brothers', 3rd Rock has a clever, distinct point of view seen through the extraterrestrial team who has no other worldly powers except absolute truthfulness.