Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Merchant of Venice in Third Rock from the Sun

“Hotel Dick.” By Bonnie Turner and Terry Turner. Perf. John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and George Takei. Dir. Robert Berlinger. 3rd Rock from the Sun. Season 2, episode 13. NBC. 29 September 1996. DVD. Mill Creek Entertainment, 2011.

Very briefly, here is one last Shakespeare allusion in 3rd Rock from the sun—once again provided by avid Bardfilm reader and Twitter user @GtThee2ANunnery.

In this episode, the aliens confront human prejudices against them, delivering a riff on Shylock's "Hath not a Jew hands?" speech. Of additional interest is its delivery to George Takei—Mr. Sulu of Star Trek fame, brining to mind Data's use of the same speech in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode (for which, q.v.).

In any case, here it is!


Links: The Episode at IMDB.

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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
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