With little to no promotion and pretty much no information about it, Syfy threw up a pilot for the show Three Inches. The show was originally ordered in early 2010, but it seemed to languish in development hell for awhile. Then, when Syfy moved forward with Alphas, they decided to see if they could make Three Inches seem more different. That failed and the show was shut down. But in the dead of winter, in the dead time between Christmas and New Years, Syfy decided to throw the pilot on. I happened to run across it on the channel guide and decided it was worth a watch. And it’s probably good it didn’t move forward. Read on to see why.

Walter (Noah Reid) has moved back in with his mom and is working on his ten year plan (upgraded from a five year plan). His second move is to find an apartment with his best friend. His first move is to get shot down by the girl next door who’s put him firmly in the friend zone. While he’s recovering from being shot down, he gets hit by lightning. As he recovers, he finds out he now has a super power. He can telepathically move things, but only three inches and he needs to recover a little bit after doing it.

He then gets recruited by the mysterious Troy Hamilton (James Marsters) who is putting together a team of people with limited super powers such as Walter. There’s the guy who can make himself smell really badly and the girl who can influence feelings, but only when she’s in close. Troy teaches Walter that his power isn’t useless and shows him that he can use his three inch moving power to unlock any door.

The team then gets its first mission. They were hired to recover a package from a secure facility. It turns out the package is a little girl with a lot more power than all of them combined and has a bigger sister who’s trying to recover her as well. Walter has to decide whether his new team is working for good or for bad and whether he wants to continue on.

The biggest issue I had with the show is that the tone is inconsistent. It couldn’t decide if it wants to be straightforward superhero or tongue-in-cheek. The basic idea of a super hero team filled with people who have silly little powers seems to be made for a tongue-in-cheek, but the show starts storming into straight forward action when they get their mission. This makes it difficult to get an idea of what the show is aiming for. The acting is mediocre at best and the ending is a cop out on two different plot lines. Overall, it needed to be retooled and it sounded like they couldn’t figure out how. I would say don’t watch it, but I’m not sure you’ll ever get the chance.