Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Masked Dancer’ On Fox, A ‘Masked Singer’ Spin-Off Where The Costumed Mystery Celebs Show Off Their Moves

While The Masked Singer is based on a Korean format, The Masked Dancer is based on an Ellen format. What do we mean? Ellen DeGeneres did a spoof on Singer for her daytime talk show, consisting of masked celebrities dancing, with her and her DJ tWitch trying to guess who is under the costume. But the producers of Singer hopped on that spoof and, with Ellen on board as a producer, brought it into the “Masked Universe.” Is it as good as the original? 

THE MASKED DANCER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A football shoots out from space and hurtles towards earth. Joe Buck says, “America, prepare yourselves for a brand new event from the Masked Universe.” Dancers on stage gyrate to “Gonna Make You Sweat.” The football and Joe Buck are there because the first episode of The Masked Dancer premieres after Fox’s football coverage.

The Gist: Hosted by Craig Robinson, The Masked Dancer follows virtually the same format as The Masked Singer, except the elaborately-costumed mystery celebrities dance instead of sing. Robinson introduces the character — Group A consists of Mirror Ball, Tulip, Exotic Bird, Hammerhead and Cricket — and, before each dances, a video is shown where the celebrity tells their story. Their voices are disguised, but there are clues given throughout, some highlighted by shooting stars.

Ken Jeong is the only holdover from the Masked Singer judge’s table; on this show, he’s joined by Paula Abdul, Ashley Tisdale and Brian Austin Green. They start speculating who’s under the mask right away. Then the character does their dance routine, aided by elaborate sets, pyrotechnics, and a team of background dancers. After the routine, the dancer talks to the judges, who continue to speculate.

A new feature is “Word Up,” where the dancer says one word in his or her real voice. Then more speculation happens on who’s under the mask — some of it logical (BAG guesses that the Cricket is his 90210 buddy Ian Ziering) and others are completely bonkers (Abdul thinks Ariana Grande would put on a tulip head to be on this show, for instance).

The dancer with the lowest scores from the studio audience is eliminated and their identity revealed, but not before the judges lock in who they think is under the mask. The other five celebrities in Group B — Cotton Candy, Ice Cube, Sloth, Miss Moth and Zebra — will dance when the show settles into its regular timeslot on January 6.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Masked Singer, of course. Also, the Masked Dancer segments from Ellen, which is where this show originated.

Our Take: Just like we said when The Masked Singer debuted almost two years ago, The Masked Dancer is a bonkers premise, but after four seasons of its parent show, it’s a bonkers premise we’re used to.

Besides the fact that the masked celebrity is dancing instead of singing, there’s little difference between the shows. The dancers vary in ability; some barely move and others look like professionals. The “clue package” videos are slickly-produced, telling the judges and audience the celeb’s story, which usually involves some sort of redemption or some conflict that has happened in their lives. One contestant was bullied, another lost themselves trying to please people in show business, etc.

If you’re a fan of The Masked Singer, this show should be just as fun to watch. Just like on the parent show, you get caught up in speculating along with the judges who the masked celebrity is, but also get to yell at the screen when a judge guesses someone ridiculous. We get it; we think the likes of Jeong and Abdul are encouraged to guess wildly, even if there’s no logical reason why the A-lister they guessed would ever show up on the show.

It’s more entertaining to say “There’s no way that the Cricket is Jim Carrey, you fools!” than to say, “Hey, Ken Jeong, you’re right; the Tulip might just be Heather Morris.” This is something we didn’t get when we first watched the parent show, but we get now that this irritation is part of the format’s secret sauce.

Robinson, who most people know from either The Office or Hot Tub Time Machine, is much less ingratiating than his Singer counterpart Nick Cannon, which is a good thing; he moves the show along without trying to center the spotlight on himself. Jeong is still at his most annoying, which we hate to say because we’re fans, but there’s also a reason why he’s the only carryover from the original show; he’s divisive like a Simon Cowell, but in a happy sort of way. Abdul is Abdul, unchanged from her judging stints on American Idol and other shows. Tisdale and BAG are the wild cards; during the first episode, they were entertainingly unobtrusive.

Sex and Skin: None, unless you count the hip shaking Exotic Bird did during her dance.

Parting Shot: We won’t spoil which character was eliminated here, but one was eliminated at the end of the episode. We also won’t spoil who the celebrity was under that costume because… we can’t. Fox’s screener bleeps out all references to the celebrity and puts a blurry dot over his/her head. Feh. (SPOILER ALERT: It ended up that the Mirror Ball was eliminated, with Ice-T under the mask. No one guessed him, despite the fact that one of the highlighted clues in the clue package was Mirror Ball pouring a glass of iced tea. Double feh.)

Sleeper Star: We have our thoughts on who the Mirror Ball is — in one clue, he’s pouring iced tea, which all the judges seemed to miss, as well as the Exotic Bird. We do know that the Bird will go pretty far.

Most Pilot-y Line: If you’re watching and wondering why there seems to be an ironically un-masked audience in the middle of a pandemic, but the judges are sitting six feet from each other, read up on how The Masked Singer produced its fourth season earlier this year. They use most of the same methods; some virtual reality, some audience shots from previous seasons, and piped-in crowd noise, with a small human audience behind the judges. It’s rather unsettling, whether you know what’s going on or not, but it’s understandable; this show would be deadly without audience reaction as part of it, even if it’s fake.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Masked Singer has proven to be a winner for Fox, and The Masked Dancer doesn’t futz with that format all that much.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The Masked Dancer On Fox.com