ABC/Guy D’Alema
It’s honestly hard to believe this happened in 2017 at all, that ABC decided to remake Dirty Dancing as a weak-sauce jukebox musical that aped some of the most famous images and dialogue from the 1987 classic, only with none of the swagger, choreography and, well, dirty-ness. Abigail Breslin actually gives a sweetly ungainly lead performance, but who thought it was a good idea to do a Dirty Dancing in which Baby and Johnny (Colt Prattes) generate zero sparks? And don’t even get me started on Prattes’ delivery of the iconic “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” Or, actually, any of his dialogue. Never have I appreciated and missed Patrick Swayze more. Despite removing everything good about the original Dirty Dancing, the ABC remake ran a solid 30 minutes longer, thanks to a pointless and unintentionally hilarious structuring device, rendering the climactic end-of-summer dance an afterthought, which maybe wasn’t so bad since that dance is utterly lifeless here. Let’s just pretend this never happened. — DF