(Credit: Netflix)

Milano Cortina 2026 is literally around the corner, and just when you thought you had time to mentally prepare for another round of athletic heartbreak, Netflix drops Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing. Mind you, this show is not just a warm-up act before the main event, but is about to be one of the biggest reasons you are going to be watching the actual Olympics.

One thing you need to understand about this series is that it will never give you the chance to settle in, because it starts at the point where every decision already carries consequences, and the skaters know there is no room left for error.

And yes, because it is a sports documentary, if you think this is going to be neatly edited clips with soft piano and inspiring commentary, you are very mistaken. This is a massive theatre production staged on ice, except the main conflict is never just about winning. It is about holding eye contact with someone who knows every one of your insecurities while a panel of judges decides if your body language looks emotionally aligned.

Glitter & Gold is about trusting a person enough to let them lift you with knives on their feet. It is about pretending everything is fine while the entire world watches for the crack that proves it isn’t.

And somehow, through all this, it still manages to feel intimate, like you are backstage with these people while they navigate training schedules and the constant need to stay in sync even when they are not speaking. The documentary follows three elite ice dancing teams preparing for the 2026 Olympics, and while their stories are wildly different, they all carry this same pressure of knowing that one imperfect step could end everything they have worked for.

You get Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who have been skating together since 2011, are now married, and still somehow have not won Olympic gold as a pair, which is wild considering they have been world champions three times.

After them, you get Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, who have that insane level of chemistry built from years of trust and shared disappointments and are now heading into what might be their last shot at the podium.

And then, because Netflix never lets things stay peaceful, you get the return of Guillaume Cizeron, Olympic gold medallist, legend, and drama magnet, now partnered with Laurence Fournier Beaudry, who had to switch countries and leave her old team behind to skate with him. If that does not scream docuseries material, I do not know what does.

It is not just about technique or choreography but about the weight of years, of expectations, of all the things that never get said between performances. And even if you do not know a single rule about ice dancing, you will feel every second of it. You will get personally offended when someone loses points for something you cannot even see. You will care about toe picks. You will care about costume design. You will care about two people pretending to love each other while twirling to orchestral music on Olympic ice.

And that’s the trap. Netflix gives you a story and then leaves you on the edge of February, fully invested in the outcome of an event you were not planning to watch.