‘Three’ Throws In Bits of Several Old Series

“Three” is a crowd of clones, a new WB series so derivative and formulaic that watching it is like sitting through the history of prime time in an echo chamber.

There’s some “Mission: Impossible” here, among other series. Even closer, it’s TV’s umpteenth bad imitation of “The Mod Squad,” an ABC hour (1968-73) about three rebellious young people--white guy, black guy, white female--formed by cops into a specialized unit that tackles the tough cases no one else can handle.

In “Three,” the white guy is super-thief Jonathan Vance (Edward Atterton), the black guy computer hacker Marcus Miller (Bumper Robinson), the white female scam artist Amanda Webb (Julie Bowen). They meet when “The Man” (David Warner) coerces them into working together on behalf of some mysterious agency because, as he informs them, each is “the best at what you do.” If only one of them could write a TV script.

The problem is that these three don’t get along at all. Yup, zippo. So how will they ever work together? As you can imagine, the tension over that builds, as it does when they tackle their first assignment, stealing $3 million, and then confront a sadistic genius who arranges phony deaths for criminals.

Things get dicey when Amanda must twice pretend to be a hooker and when Marcus faces the prospect of being dissolved into nothingness, which by this time you’re hoping will happen. The good news is that, hey, these guys are sort of getting to like each other.

You know they’re serious when they walk together in slow-motion. In fact, despite its hyper music, the entire hour feels like slow-motion.

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* “Three” premieres at 9 tonight on WB (Channel 5). The network has rated it TV-PG-V (may not be suitable for young children; contains some violence).