TVNZ 2 Buries Dirty Dancing Special

TVNZ 2 will premiere the TV re-make of Dirty Dancing barely 10 days after its US debut but off-peak.

It will air midday on June 5, as part of the network’s Queen’s Birthday Weekend line-up.

It’s not surprising TVNZ 2 hasn’t awarded this 2017 production a primetime slot given its discordant reviews in the US (where it airs tomorrow NZ time).

“ABC’s earnest, anodyne remake has managed to surgically extract the magic — leaving the story and signature lines intact while suctioning out all the subtlety, charm and lead chemistry that defined the iconic 1987 original,” Entertainment Weekly says.

The New York Times dubs the three-hour special a “chemistry-free version of that beloved film.

“Most of the signature scenes are reproduced — watermelons are carried, a dance lift in a lake is attempted — but the emotional investment that made the 1987 movie an unexpected worldwide phenomenon is nowhere to be felt.”

“Abigail Breslin makes for an authentically nervous, tentative Baby, but otherwise ABC’s bloated, unconvincingly musical remake has no reason to exist,” laments The Hollywood Reporter while Variety labels it “a sappy, passionless, schlocky remake of the original, without even the iota of imagination necessary to expand upon the 1987 film”.