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RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 1 & Episode 2 – “One Night Only” Talent Show Review & Power Ranking

January 7, 2023 by krisis

Welcome to my supersized Power Rankings of the massive double-episode premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 – “One Night Only”! This pair of premiere episodes introduced a never-ending cast of 16 queens competing in a mini-challenge photoshoot, a Talent Show, and a runway theme of “Who is She?”

The last season of Drag Race was one of the most-entertaining in the history of the show. It also verged on jumping the shark. There were several stretches of episodes with no eliminations, the season shoved an excessive (but entertaining) lip sync tournament in the middle, and the entire thing was saddled with the “it’s chocolate” save mechanism that was obviously fully under the control of the producers.

It left Season 14 feeling belabored. For the first time, many fans complained that Drag Race was… well, dragging. Drag Race is at its best when it is a non-stop variety show competition with real stakes for the contestants when they misstep. The more it is stuffed full of non-eliminations, immunity, or special saves, the more it drifts into feeling scripted – which minimized the agency of a talent cast of artists.

What saved Season 14 from sailing straight over the proverbial shark was its cast. In retrospect, the cast seems packed full of unforgettable personalities – but, part of why they were so unforgettable is that we got so much time between them Sashaying away!

As it turns out, a belabored season can still be one of the best, as long as it spends that extra time showing off its cast.

The show seems to be headed in the opposite direction this year, with a massive cast competing all at once in this first pair of episodes with a supposedly irreversible elimination at the end. That means far less early screen time per queen. Plus, after this initial pair of episodes, episodes will only air for an hour on MTV (which means the actual content is more like 40 minutes).

Will Drag Race be able to steer away from its impending shark jump by producing a brisk, tight, shenanigan-free season that shows off the talents of its massive cast? Or, will this extra-long season of extra-short episodes collapse under the sheer weight of trying to make each of its 16 queens stand out.

Only time will tell if the season was successful, but based on these first two episodes there seems to be a clear divide in the cast between the competitors and the potential fodder. Several queens burst out of the gates ready to slay, while many others seemed to struggle to make their drag ready for prime time.

Which queens came out on top and which ones are in danger of an early elimination? My Power Rankings considers each queen’s performance on the show as well as how they are treated by the edit and the “meta game” of what a queen needs to win Drag Race in the wake of a season with an unusual winner like Willow Pill.

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best drag queen win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 1 & Episode 2 – “One Night Only” Talent Show Review & Power Ranking

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 – Pre-Season “Meet The Queens” Power Rankings

January 2, 2023 by krisis

It’s time, my drag-loving darlings! That’s right, we’ve made it through a year of ten spinoff seasons of Drag Race to return to the mothership! And, mother has arrived with a massive cast of queens, so put on your reading glasses and get ready for my RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 Pre-Season Power Rankings.

This will be my eighth year writing about Drag Race in some form or another, which is wild! This time around, there’s plenty to write about: the show is launching with sixteen drag artists! The most, ever!

Each weekend (life allowing) I’ll share my Drag Race Power Rankings after the episode airs. My Drag Power Rankings aren’t about how good a queen is at drag or how much I personally like them. They are purely about predicting how well a queen might perform on the show based on their performance to date and how they are treated by the show’s editors

When it comes to the Pre-Season, I base my rankings off of two watches of each queen’s “Meet The Queens” promo interview and a quick 5-minute spin through their social media.

My Power Rankings are not about tearing any artist down. I revere Drag Race because I think it’s the most challenging competition show on television. Contestants need to act, sing, dance, model, lip sync, host, perform stand-up, sell products, write songs, make their own costumes, and more – all while applying face after face of stunning and intricate make-up. At this point in my life I’ve tried to do the majority of those things individually and they’re all pretty challenging.

And, I’ve done very few of them while wearing a corset and high heels.

While the tone of some of my critiques can be very pointed, every queen who competes on Drag Race is a world-class artist. I respect every one of them. I could spend an entire year and not get close to any of their performances in most challenges (except, of course, for songwriting).

One thing to keep in mind is that these “Meet The Queens” promos are shot after some or all of the season is complete. That means that the queens are interviewing with full knowledge of who will be first out and who will be a frontrunner. Drawing conclusions from these interviews isn’t just about prognosticating. Sometimes there are obvious tells from the queens about how things are going to go.

Who’s on top based on first impressions solely from their Meet The Queens and social media? And, who do I think is likely to receive the first boot when the season premieres on MTV this Friday?

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best drag queen win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 – Pre-Season “Meet The Queens” Power Rankings

Drag Race Philippines Season 1 Episode 5 – Miss Shutacca, Review & Power Ranking

September 8, 2022 by krisis

Mabuhay! Welcome to my review and power rankings of the fifth episode of Drag Race Philippines Season 1 – Miss Shutacca, a realistic beauty pageant with the queens dancing and improv-ing stereotypical beauty queen roles.

For me, this episode is terrific example of what Drag Race can be. It had everything: a cruel choreographer, technical difficulties that crossed over from being annoying to be just as camp as the challenge, a strong runway, and a terrific set of judge’s critiques.

I found “Miss Shutacca” to be a fascinating challenge because it asked a cast full of reality show contestants to fake being beauty pageant contestants in a very real pageant. When Race Race had done this in the past, the pageant itself was deliberately satirical – as on Canada’s Drag Race Season 1.

Here, the pageant was played incredibly straight, save for some of the hosts’ banter. It was also very long – one of the longest sequences of improve we’ve ever seen on Drag Race, with four distinct segments plus choreography. That meant at points the queens couldn’t help but let their inner competitors shine through their characters – especially in the Q&A portion.

It was fascinating to see how some queens broke character in that moment, while others used it to dive more deeply into it. Similarly, I was entranced by how seriously real life Miss Universe 2015 Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach took this fake pageant full of drag queens. She was resplendently beautiful and a natural as a judge; I wouldn’t be surprised to see her return to the show. Meanwhile, KaladKaren got to show off her absurd side as a co-host of the pageant.

The competition to stay entrenched in the Top 3 is really heating up as we approach the halfway mark of the season. Of the remaining seven queens, five of them feel entirely possible as finalists. That resulted in a shake-up at the top of the ranking this week compared to last week’s ranking.

If you want to watch Drag Race Philippines outside of the Philippines 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 Filipino drag queen win! [Read more…] about Drag Race Philippines Season 1 Episode 5 – Miss Shutacca, Review & Power Ranking

RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2, Episode 6 – Hometown Hunnies: Review & Power Ranking

September 4, 2022 by krisis

Kia ora and welcome to my review and power rankings for the sixth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 – Hometown Hunnies, where queens were challenged to create a spoof tourism ad for their hometowns.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen another episode of Drag Race where RuPaul seemed so incredibly over it, both in the workroom and on the runway.

Maybe that comes down to how the queens took the direction to create their spoof ads. All of them understood the challenge in an incredibly literal way and were initially planning straight-forward homages to their hometowns with little bits of humor. Ru sets them straight one-by-one in the workroom, telling each one of them to go back to the drawing board with limited time before their shoot begins.

We all know Ru loves to keep the queens second-guessing themselves, but the fact that she needed to correct everyone in the cast tells me there was some form of missed communication from production to the queens. Maybe that was intentional, or maybe Ru and the production team simply assumed the “spoof” aspect of the ads was implied right up until Ru’s walk-around.

I think there’s a little bit of a cultural aspect mixed in with that. I feel like if the US franchise asked a queen to talk about her home town, she would be more likely to assume it was mean to be a silly version and script it as such.

For Australia and New Zealand, I feel like there’s a lot more pride in wanting to make your town look good – especially on an international stage. Even though almost all of them do take an initially negative view of their hometowns (Beverly, especially), at first they all seemed mor- focused on explaining their places rather than telling a story about themselves.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this many awkward moments in a Drag Race judges’ critique that didn’t end in RuPaul screaming about H&M. It feels like the editors could barely piece together enough comments from the three judges to fill the time. Maybe that’s down to Ru’s openly hostile reception to most of the ads (again, stemming from poor direction). Or, it could’ve been the super-basic “Swimsuit Edition” runway prompt, which feels like it was originally intended for a mini-challenge or third ball look. To their credit, all of the queens took things in a conceptual direction with their swimsuits, but the prompt definitely failed to produce a gag-worthy moment – and, it gave the judges very little to discuss.

That leaves us with a fairly obvious Final Four, as predicted in last week’s “Bosom Buddies” Power Rankings (and the week before that in Snatch Game, and the week before that in Drag Brunch). The real question is who will graduate to the Top 3 in the finale after next week’s episode. Two of the choices seem very obvious, while the other one is still hotly contested.

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!

Canada’s Drag Race Season 3 Episode 8 – Masquerade Ball, Review & Power Ranking

September 2, 2022 by krisis

Welcome to my review and power rankings of the eighth episode of Canada’s Drag Race Season 3 – the Masquerade Ball, a classic Drag Race ball episode requiring three runway looks, including one constructed in the workroom.

I often comment that Canada’s Drag Race feels like old-school RuPaul’s Drag Race from the era of it airing on Logo TV. You could ask, “Is that a read?” about it feeling low budget compared to the current flagship franchise. For me, it’s more about the show having a certain scrappy, DIY energy.

Also, sometimes it’s unforgivingly difficult.

When I think about Drag Race at its hardest, I always flash back to RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 3 as the most-difficult season of all time, where the queens looked like they were on the verge of a nervous breakdown when Ru announced the “Money Ball” hot on the heels of the “Hair Ball.”

I imagine that’s what the five remaining queens of Canada’s Drag Race must have felt when they heard the final hurdle before the finale was the Masquerade Ball – a third design challenge in just eight competitive episodes. That’s not only difficult, but also surprising, since it means this season left out not one but two staple challenges of Canada that would be welcomed by several of these queens: an acting challenge and their phenomenally heartfelt makeover challenge, which have been the highlights of the past two seasons.

Sending the queens back to their sewing machines and glue guns for a third time yielded interesting results. Our two seamstresses backslid while two of the remaining trio of Glue Gun Girls stepped up their games in a major way.

Maybe the seamstresses had design fatigue at this point. Or, maybe Masquerade Ball is just a difficult category to design – as were both of the ball categories paired with it! We wound up with a shakey set of constructed looks, a surprising winner, a shocking entrant in the bottom two, and one of the biggest lip sync bops of the season.

Next week is the finale of Canada’s Drag Race! Did any queen manage to jostle her way into a new spot compared to last week’s rankings? And, who do I think is most-likely to take the crown? Read on to find out!

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!