Archives for 2022

RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2, Episode 2 – Cagey Queens: Review & Power Ranking

August 7, 2022 by krisis

Kia ora and welcome to my review and power rankings for the second episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 – “Cagey Queens” – a particularly wretched acting challenge.

Despite living in New Zealand for five years, I haven’t seen a single lick of New Zealand TV – so, I couldn’t tell you if this prison skit is a spoof of anything specific about Down Under television.

(In fact, there have been some well-regarded Aussie prison shows to pull from – namely, Prisoner and its modern reboot Wentworth – but I can’t say whether it references either.)

Just based on what I’ve absorbed from conversational context, it feels like a more apt acting challenge would be a Soap Opera spoof of Home and Away or Neighbours, a high school drama, a parody of Xena, a nature programme, or even a badly-imported reality TV show.

(Too meta?)

Yet, here we are with a prison script that sincerely has no plot and no jokes. Much like the “here’s some leaves” design challenge last episode, it feels like these Aussie and Kiwi queens are being given nothing to work worth.

In the immortal words of India Ferrah: “Girl… prison, honey.”

Yet, once again this cast somehow managed to shine despite that. Aside from two queens who were particularly lost in this scene, everyone delivered something ranging from a decent performance to laugh-out-loud comedy.

Pair that with a particularly-strong insect-themed runway and it feels like the cast made good episode by sheer force of will. They certainly weren’t aided by a downright surly Michelle Visage, or the typically-hilarious Lucy Lawless as a guest judge. She gets the chance to say maybe two sentences throughout the entire episode.

This criminally bad acting challenge has shaken up the power rankings significantly from my Week One rankings – with one low queen on a meteoric rise and another queen seemingly doomed to be the next out no matter what she does. Do you agree or disagree? Sound off in the comments below.

If you want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 outside of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada you can sign up for WowPresentsPlus to watch the many worldwide Drag Race franchises for $4.99 a month or $50 a year. (Note that if you’re in the home country of a franchise you will need to use a VPN to “visit” another country to see that content.)

Readers, start your engines… and may the best Down Under drag queen win!

Drag Race France Season 1 Episode 7 – Sororité makeover challenge: Review & Power Ranking

August 6, 2022 by krisis

Bonjour bonjour bonjour, mes chers lecteurs! Welcome to my review and power rankings of the seventh episode of Drag Race France Season 1 – “Sororité,” a Drag Race France makeover challenge all about sisterhood.

Makeover challenges have fallen out of being Drag Race mainstays over the past few years. While you might be tempted to blame that on the pandemic, it actually started earlier than that – possibly because of spoilers. With the show’s popularity growing every year, it gets harder and harder to pull in random strangers for a makeover challenge just like it gets more challenging to have an in-studio audience for a challenge.

Drag Race France skirts the issue by relying on close friends as make-over partners, and this elite group of top four queens rises to the occasion. You really get the sense that they were energized by working with their best friends, because each of them delivered on the runway.

Did they deliver so well that the only choice was to forgo awarding a win in favor of a lip sync tournament? I’m not sure. It seemed clear there was a top two and a bottom two in this runway presentation. The problem was that Lolita Banana was in the top two, and La Grande Dame was in the bottom two.

Of course, the show knew there was a one-in-two shot of Lolita winding up in the top for the challenge. Despite the judges beating up on her the past few weeks, she has proven to be a competitive queen and her distinct mug meant she’d have a natural advantage in a makeover challenge. You can’t fabricate a lip sync tournament out of nowhere, because all of the queens need to be prepared on all three of the songs – which means the queens likely had some inkling of this twist even before Nicky Doll announced it on the runway.

Even if there was a clear top two and the twist was telegraphed, it didn’t feel unfair. This is an indisputably strong top four and it made sense to ask them all to prove themselves one more time rather than simply relying on the challenge to determine a lip sync and a final three.

What felt unfair was dismissing a stronger lip sync performer in the final elimination. Alas, that’s the theme of the past week of Drag Race! There’s only so much you can do in the edit to make a losing queen seem like she slayed the performance. While lip sync tournaments make for exciting episodes, the secret truth is they almost always take some amount of past performance into account – even in a blow-out.

We’re left with one of the most evenly-matched top trios in Drag Race herstory – but who is most-likely to take home the crown? I have one final power ranking for you, and it’s not the same as last week’s Episode 6 power rankings. Do you agree on my predicted winner? Let me know in the comments below.

If you want to watch Drag Race France you can sign up for WowPresentsPlus to watch the many worldwide Drag Race franchises for $4.99 a month or $50 a year. (Note that if you’re in the US you will need to use a VPN to “visit” another country to see the US Franchise.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!

Canada’s Drag Race Season 3 Episode 4 – Bitch Stole My Look: Review & Power Ranking

August 5, 2022 by krisis

Welcome to my review and power rankings of the fourth episode of Canada’s Drag Race Season 3 – “Bitch Stole My Look,” an identical materials design challenge.

Canada’s Drag Race continues its streak of subtly re-imagining past Drag Race challenges to give us something that feels both classic and unique. This week, that meant a classic “what’s in the box?” design challenge where every queen received an identical box! Despite an early misdirect that they’d all have to design to different themes, they had free reign to do whatever they wanted with their same sets of materials.

The only other time on Drag Race I can recall an entire cast of queens being challenged with designing from an identical set of materials with relatively equal availability was Season 3‘s epic “Money Ball.” The magic of that challenge was the unusual material of paper money, which was plentifully available.

In this challenge, everyone received the same silver and purple fabrics and accessories, but not too much else. I understand why: the less production gave the queens, the more risk that that would produce similar outfits – which was what they were all trying to avoid.

While giving the queens a limited supply of a neutral color like silver might have prevented anyone from gaining an advantage purely due to color choice it wasn’t easy to make the shiny, flimsy, silver lamé look expansive. Also, it was either hard to line or the queens didn’t receive anything suitable to line it with, because not even the best seamstresses added lining.

I think there’s a sweet spot between giving the queens complete free reign with their resources, like on All Stars 7 – All Winners and keep them so restricted it ensures failures, as we saw last week on Drag Race Down Under. While this wasn’t quite as bad as giving everyone a box full of fern leaves and wheat grass, it does feel like we were robbed of seeing some queens turn out stronger outfits if they had just slightly more in their boxes – even if that was a plain-as-heck neutral gray fleece that they could’ve used for structure and lining.

That also robbed special guest judge Jimbo of being able to go over-the-top with his comments, which in turn robbed us as viewers of delightfully memeable moments. I love this experiment with bringing past competitors to the judging panel, but the past two challenges haven’t given them much remarkable work to judge.

After a surprising win and a narratively-driven boot this episode, we’re left with eight queens and some seriously shaken-up rankings compared to my Episode Three power rankings! Do you agree with my #1 queen and the rest of my ranks? Sound off below in the comments!

If you want to watch Canada’s Drag Race Season 3 outside of Canada and the UK you can sign up for WowPresentsPlus to watch the many worldwide Drag Race franchises for $4.99 a month or $50 a year. (Note that if you’re in the US you will need to use a VPN to “visit” another country to see the US Franchise.)

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best Queen (of the North) win!

Guide to DC Comics Lucifer – now available to the public!

August 4, 2022 by krisis

I’m happy to announce that my Guide to Lucifer at DC Comics is now available to all CK readers to celebrate for The Morningstar’s appearance in Netflix’s adaptation of The Sandman by Neil Gaiman thanks to the ongoing support of the Mighty Patrons of Crushing Krisis.

Guide to Lucifer

Many viewers have wondered if Tom Ellis’s seductive version of Lucifer would appear in Netflix’s The Sandman, and were surprised to learn that the character would instead be an androgynous golden-haired version played by Gwendoline Christie.

If you read Gaiman’s introduction of the character with Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg in The Sandman (1988) #4 you’ll see yet another depiction – The Morningstar is drawn as an overt homage to a pre-Ziggy Stardust David Bowie!

My guide lists all of Lucifer’s appearances throughout The Sandman as well as how to collect the subsequent 75-issue Lucifer series by Mike Carey, on which the CW show is very loosely based.

Plus, don’t miss on Dan Watters’ excellent 2018 revival of the title and character for DC’s relaunched Sandman Universe!

Updated: Guide to The Sandman Universe

August 3, 2022 by krisis

Gearing up for this week’s debut of Netflix’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman? I’ve updated my Definitive Guide to The Sandman Universe with all of the newest collected formats of Gaiman’s landmark 75-issue series, plus its continuation in the 2018 Sandman Universe!

If you’re looking to pick up the entire original run of Sandman for a binge-read after your binge-watch, you currently have five different physical format choices – all summarized below! For full collection information for each book and plenty of additional information, see the full guide. [Read more…] about Updated: Guide to The Sandman Universe