An ode to all things Swayze

Travis Fimmel, left, and Patrick Swayze star in "The Beast"

By: Casey Gillis | Lynchburg News and Advance
Published: January 15, 2009

I think I’ve loved Patrick Swayze all my life.

As a kid, “Dirty Dancing” was one of my favorite movies, and I doubt I’m alone in saying that Swayze was among my first celebrity crushes.

The movie was also a hit among many of my neighborhood friends as we were growing up, and there are actually incriminating videos of us out there, acting out the final scene in “Dirty Dancing.”

Come on, you know the one: when Johnny pulls Baby out of that corner and finally nails the lift. (Mom, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep those home videos under wraps. Forever.)

Then there are other Swayze classics, like “Road House,” “Next of Kin,” “Point Break” and, of course, “Ghost.”

So what’s the reason for this trip down memory lane?

Brace yourselves, people. Swayze is back, starring as an undercover cop in “The Beast,” a new A&E series that premieres tonight at 10 p.m.

He plays Charles Barker, a veteran FBI agent who plays by his own rules and is, when the series begins, schooling his rookie partner in the ways of undercover work.

Barker is a bully and kind of a jerk, but “he gets the job done,” says new partner Ellis (Travis Fimmel, a Brad Pitt look-a-like who has definite TV boyfriend potential).

I like the tense partnership developing between Barker and Ellis, especially Ellis’ internal battle about whether or not to inform on Barker to an Internal Affairs team that’s investigating him.

My love for most things Swayze makes this next part hard to say.

While it’s great to see him back in that “Road House” butt-kicking mode — especially after reports of his battle with pancreatic cancer — the show itself hasn’t thrilled me so far.

The premiere jumps right into Barker’s convoluted life, with little explanation and poor character introductions. It feels like an episode that belongs in the middle of a season and not as the pilot.

At one point, he goes to meet a woman who tells him her husband is in trouble. But we have no clue who this woman is or why Barker cares until the end of the first hour, which diminishes the significance of what happens early on.

In the first two episodes, the undercover assignments and the agents’ cover identities aren’t terribly compelling or interesting.

At times, the show is just too melodramatic for its own good and is weighed down with lines like “Screw bureau protocol.”

Wow, we’ve never heard that one before.