I just finished watching the pilot for Three Inches. It would have made a good Disney film if they had made it 45 years ago (except for the violence, of course). It actually reminds me a lot of The Absent Minded Professor with Fred MacMurray—the scene where they attached flubber to the bottoms of their feet and won the basketball game.
What has become of the Sci-Fi (oh sorry
Syfy) Channel? Whatever happened to the notion that science fiction is about the exploration of ideas? Everything they have to offer is either abominably cute or a reworked cliché. It is either a magical place where anything can happen as long as it is mixed with unbearably light humor or a vampire living together with a werewolf and a ghost (all cliché).
Three Inches seems to be a combination of both kinds of show offered by the Syfy Channel: cliché and adorable. I realize it was being considered as an alternate for Alphas, but that is even more to the point. Why were they considering two such similar (and ultimately cliché) shows? Couldn't they also have been considering a show about inter-dimensional travel? Now that I think of it, whatever happened to space opera? When Battlestar Galactica ended, couldn't they have looked into something along those lines?
Instead, we have vampires, werewolves, ghosts, campy towns with magical properties, and super heroes with limited powers. Oh yea, there are the reality shows. As Bender would say, "Gag unto me with a spoon."
When the Sci-Fi Channel was invented, especially in an environment where it seemed possible to create any illusion one could imagine, I thought it was the return of the golden age of science fiction.
Oh, the agony. It's like someone stuck me with a three inch knife—not enough to kill; just enough to maim.
