‘Dancing With Myself’ Review: That’s A No From Me

If you’re looking for the most cringe reality competition ever invented, Dancing With Myself is certainly a candidate for your hate-watch list. If not…Well. We suffered through this abomination so you wouldn’t have to. (Please feel free to donate to our caffeine allowance so we can keep our coping mechanisms intact.)

Besides the obvious—namely, WTF—we have plenty of questions after watching this one. Questions like “why,” and “dear God, who thought this was a good idea.” Then, there’s probably my personal favorite: “Who would be desperate enough to make an ass out of themselves like this?”

If you’re looking for a career in dance, there are better ways to get exposure. Dancing With Myself‘s network, NBC, even has a great option on the books: World of Dance. Then, there’s FOX’s legendary SYTYCD. Which, sure. It was canceled for a couple of years due to the pandemic, but you know, “COVID is over” and “back to normal” (or whatever other denialist nonsense) so the series is back. We’re not exactly happy with the “trying too hard” aspect of wanting to freshen SYTYCD up, but…It’s still the reality competition for dancers.

The thing is, Dancing With Myself is clearly not for serious dance types anyway. Which, great! Dance is for everyone, after all.

Just…not like this.

We’re really not quite sure who the show is supposed to be for, actually. But “giant budget for garish sets that ripped off and further bedazzled Hollywood Squares,” plus “awful, repetitive, TikTok-inspired moves” definitely equals…something.

And no, we’re not throwing TikTok into this for the hell of it. Supposedly, the whole idea for this series came from seeing so many people have fun with the site’s dance trends during the pandemic (which, again, still not over). So, obviously, taking something small, fun, and personal, saying, “let’s make money off this” is fabulous. Kind of like saying, “hey, if you make an ass out of yourself, you might just win $25K” is totally the way to go, too.

(And that’s without us even beginning to get into the appropriation aspect of it all.)

Between the cost of production and the $25K per episode winner, one wonders how much that cash could have been put to better use. But hey! Our capitalist overlords love to see us act out our desperation for money. What better way to help us be able to have basic needs, like shelter, food, and healthcare? (All of which should, you know, be rights). Genius! Throw in some “star power,” like Shakira, Joe Jonas, and some chick who was in a dance movie with Keiynan Lonsdale once but who is most known for her Vines and YouTube channel…and you’ve got an experience.

What we’re saying here is it’s giving Black Mirror—and not, at all, in a good way.

There’s no point in faulting any of the contestants for doing this show. But yeah, there’s a lot of fault for thinking this was something anyone needed.

Spontaneous Dancing With Myself WTFs

• Billy Idol deserves better.
• No, truly. WTF did Billy Idol ever do to y’all? Why do you want me to hate his art?
• “…even when I’m in the aisle, I’ll bust a move…” Do these moves violate air safety rules? They should.
• Is this Dance Moms? If not, what’s with pulling all the ridiculously over-the-top faces?
• Sir, you didn’t need to tell us you “have no dance training.” We could absolutely tell.
• The obnoxious floating hearts to mimic Facebook and Instagram Live…
• This is hell. Hell is real, and this is it.
• “Freestyle” is too generous. “Flail and do the same three moves from the ‘challenges,’ none of which have anything to do with the music” is more accurate.
• “I am definitely a comedian. Not a dancer.” Ok so then why are you giving people a “dance along challenge,” though?
• “This isn’t about being a good dancer. Is it? I hope it’s not.” Uh. There it is.
• At least the audience had the taste (using that term loosely) to Facebook-heart the best dancer’s way to a win?
• What is grief, if not the lasting image of this show persevering?

Feel free to watch Dancing With Myself Tuesday at 10/9c on NBC, we guess?