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3rd Rock from the Sun
Sally Solomon
Sally-Solomon-3rd-rock-from-the-sun-5910073-498-392
Sally Solomon

Gender

Female (in human form)

Species

Extraterrestrial

Occupation

Security Officer
Homemaker
Various Short-lived Jobs

Relatives

Dick Solomon (Brother)
Harry Solomon (Brother)
Tommy Solomon (Nephew)

First Appearance

Brains and Eggs

Final Appearance

The Thing That Wouldn't Die (Part 2)

Portrayed By

Kristen Johnston

It's what women are supposed to do: get married, have a bunch of kids, hire total strangers to raise them and then wonder where they went wrong

–Sally Solomon on being a woman

Sally Solomon is the Sister of Dick and Harry Solomon and the Aunt of Tommy Solomon. She is the Lieutenant, Security Officer, and second in command on the mission.

At the beginning of the series, Sally didn't have a job outside of the unit and acted as the carer or nurturer for the family, which was apparently the typical womanly role. The irony of this is Sally does not have a nurturing bone in her body and was terrible at cooking for Dick, Harry and Tommy. Nevertheless, she proved to be the de facto of the household and they quickly descended into chaos without her presence. By the end of the series, Sally became a weather reporter for the local news.

Sally has moved twice throughout the series. The first time was short-lived; while helping her friend, Nina move houses she joined her but was quickly kicked out due to their clashing personalities. The second time was when she moved into Dubcek's loft above the unit's apartment but once again left.

Personality

Sally had a very cold and authoritative personality, as the Lieutenant, Security Officer and second in command of the mission she used to be very strict and by-the-book towards guidelines, security protocols and the such but her time amongst Earth has sweetened her personality where she becomes more focused on "womanly activities"; shopping, cooking and the like instead of protecting the team. Sally used to despise her role as the woman of the family, believing there was no respect in the position for a war veteran and military officer and the only reason she apparently became the woman was that she lost a contest of some kind. Eventually Sally grew to enjoy being the woman. As by Earth standards Sally is considered attractive, she constantly uses sex to dominate men as well manipulates her boyfriend, Don to do what she wants. Upon realising she was in the wrong about controlling Don she agrees to abuse her power of being "hot" less.

A notable side of Sally is her ruthless protection over the team and her readiness to exterminate anything that might jeopardise the cover. She is the only alien who is prepared to kill a human and Tommy describes her as a "sadistic bimbo" because of this. Such examples of this are when she attempted to murder Mary Albright's brother in a cornfield after he states he was abducted and the news reporter who attempted to do an article on the Big Giant Head and Vicki Dubcek's baby.

Despite her aggressive, self-confident nature, Sally, like most of the team, is naive especially when it comes to Earth customs and socialising with humans. She has difficulty understanding metaphors, sarcasm and figure of speech in sentences and generally takes everything to mean it literally. She also has little tact and says what is on her mind whether it is rude or blunt or not. While all of the team posesses this trait, it's unknown if this is because of her lack of Earth knowledge or because of her impatience for everyone in general. She also is known to have the worst judgement when it comes to men. Though she openly dominates men and has no false modesty regarding her attractiveness, she failed to realise when Harry became a model that her dynamic with Don was that she was the attractive one, which even Don realised about the looks but Sally claims that she was out of his league, (which Don takes advantage of completely). Other examples include when she began changing her personality, appearance and beliefs after dating Seth and being unaware that she was being sexually harassed by her boss (thinking that she was harassing him).

Arrival and life on Earth

Sally's assignment is to find out what the life of a woman on Earth is like. In the episode Brains and Eggs it turns out Sally, a highly trained, decorated, combined combat specialist/military tactician, lost some sort of contest and therefore was made to be the woman. She sent in a complaint, and later switched bodies with Dick's. But she decided that she liked being the woman, and got to stay that way.

Instead of fighting and protecting like she is trained for, she is shopping, cooking, etc. Sally has a lot of self discipline, and does what she needs to do. Even though she is very "macho" she later on gets a little more ditzy and lazy. She for some reason doesn't like Mary Albright, who she simply calls 'Albright'.

She mainly stays at home with her brother Harry or hanging out with her boyfriend Don Orville. She sometimes senses danger and goes into further investigation, but usually there is no threat. She believes she is the strongest in Rutherford, until someone else, Janice comes into the police force and is stronger.

Relationships

Sally has a flirtatious nature and most of the men she meets fall for her. She has the ability to make men do pretty much what she wants. Sally uses this to her advantage.

Mr. Kevin Randall

Early on in the series Sally starts to date Harry's teacher Mr. Kevin Randall, who Sally refers to as Mr. Randall because she thinks this is what sophisticated people do.

However, the relationship doesn't last as Mr. Randall finds her too dominating and overpowering, when sally tries to become more subordinate and quite, she manages to anger Mr. Randall further as he believes her to be being manipulative. He breaks up with her over lunch. After talking it through with the family she tries to make amends by attempting to sleep with him, however this does not work and thus the relationship ends.

Don Orville

After Sally receives a parking ticket she goes to the police station thinking she has won $150, when the officer tells her she hasn't she starts shouting and officer Don comes out. Instantly attracted, he makes the fine 'disappear'.

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Sally and Don

She falls in love with Don because he is a police officer. That is the only reason. They talk to each other like in the old detective movies. Even though Don isn't really considered good looking, Sally thinks of him as that because of his uniform and job. She wants to be a good girlfriend to him, and sometimes thinks she's not good enough for him, or not pretty enough. Even though this isn't true, Don goes along with it and doesn't tell her otherwise in case she'll leave him.

It is obvious that Don is a coward, and he is very fake with Sally, he probably only likes her because she's "smokin." Once it is shown he is a weakling and he wants to be a baker, she feels almost betrayed. They break up when it's finally time for her and the rest of the "family" to "go home.

Alternate Universe

In the two-part episode "Dick'll Take Manhattan" Sally is a famous column writer for a newspaper with her main topic being sex. In this universe she is dating Don Orville who happens to be Mayor of the city and married to another woman. After Sally finds out that he's married to some other woman she gets upset and tells Don off then is eventually swoon back to him.

Sally's character in the alternate universe is an homage to 'Sex and the City' ; She writes a sex column for a newspaper, she has an addiction to shoes, she smokes, she has the same fashion-sense as Carrie (and hair style) she even has a 'Carrie' necklace. At one point the group are seen gossiping in a restaurant with cocktails a la 'Sex and the City'

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