It was always going to happen eventually, wasn’t it?
After dating formats that have seen contestants winning one another over in elaborate animal masks, sussing out a potential date using only their singing voice and, indeed, getting engaged without ever actually clapping eyes on each other, it was only a matter of time before somebody answered the age-old question: “What if Love Island… but naked?”
Paramount+ was the one who finally to be that “somebody”, with the first two instalments of the result, the succinctly-named Dating Naked, now available to stream.
Fronted by Rylan Clark, the show sees a group of singletons moving into a Love Island-esque summer paradise, and exploring the possibility of romance while completely starkers the whole time.
So far, critics have widely panned Dating Naked, with one-star reviews in a number of outlets, and words like “tedious”, “attention-seeking” and “banal” all being thrown around.
Here’s a selection of what critics have had to say (including a smattering of positive reviews, too)...
“[The only] vaguely entertaining thing about Dating Naked is that it’s hosted by Rylan Clark, who remains clothed and only says ‘I feel a bit overdressed’ once. Otherwise, it’s one heavily constructed reality show ding-dong after another, as partnerships are thrown together and discarded quicker than a cardigan at the door... [This] is a load of bollocks.”
“There are no redeeming features here, not even host Rylan, whose perma-grin seems stapled to his face as he repeats the same few phrases on autopilot [...] Save yourself the bother; even if there’s no actual underwear in sight, this show is still pants.”
“Far from injecting a new lease of life into the weary reality TV format, the nudity renders the whole thing strangely banal and mundane. It’s not really shocking, it’s just a bit tedious and attention-seeking. It’s not sexy, either – it’s too anatomical for that. It’s hard to have any sort of allure when it’s all openly displayed on a platter. If less is more, this is definitely too much.”
“Dating Naked UK isn’t necessarily awful because the contestants are naked. It’s awful and the contestants are naked. Once the novelty has worn off, it’s a dire, derivative reality contest with absolutely nothing to offer.”
“The alarming truth is that after around ten minutes of the first episode the nakedness becomes, for the viewer at least, utterly unremarkable. Honestly, by the end of episode two I’d even stopped making mental notes to not forget the pigs in blankets this Christmas.”
“Dating Naked is bonkers but extremely watchable. It’s hard to think where reality TV might take us next in the pursuit of something we haven’t seen.”
“Reality TV formats work best when they turn the volume up on real life. If I wanted to watch normal people dating, I can do that down the Slug and Lettuce any night of the week. It’s why programmes such as Dating Naked are essential.
“I have seen two early episodes of the Paramount+ show and it is fascinating what the dynamic of being nude brings to conversation.”
The first two episodes of Dating Naked are available to watch now on Paramount+.
