Drag Race

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2, Episode 6 – Strictly Come Prancing Power Rankings

March 16, 2024 by krisis

I’m back with more coverage of the Drag Olympics of Drag Race! RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2 Episode 6 – Strictly Come Prancing, a choreographed partnered dance challenge with a “Business In The Front, Party In The Back” contrasting runway.

I am not a dancer, but I love dancing – both doing it myself as watching other people do it! I grew up dancing all the time in my living room, at parties and weddings, and on the sidewalk in front of my grandmother’s house with my boombox blasting “Pump Up The Jam.”

As an adult I’ve discovered I have no head for learning choreography (as divined by working with my competitive dancing sister-in-law to try to learn the American Foxtrot). I’ve never taken a proper dance class, but I leap at the chance for any gym class with a hint of choreography.

Even if I’m no dancing queen myself, I am very well-acquainted with this week’s guest-choreographer Janette Manrara (and her dance partner, real-life husband Aljaž Škorjanec)!

I fell in love with Janette’s dancing from the moment I first glimpsed her on So You Think You Can Dance Season 5. She executed everything flawlessly, but with a casual air that reminded me of the chic Italian women of the 80s at all those parties and weddings. I’ve rewatched her routine to “Ruby Blue” with Brandon Bryant so many times I can play it back perfectly in my brain! And, she is one of the few (only?!) celebrities who I personally follow on Facebook, where I’ve kept up with her transformation from reality show contestant, to professional dancer on Strictly Come Dancing (the UK’s Dancing With The Stars), to becoming a co-host and media personality in the UK.

Manrara has been on both sides of dancing competitions – as the contestant and the pro – and she brought a no-nonsense approach to instructing our queens without a whiff of for-the-cameras drama.

The result was a predictable winner and an obvious eliminated queen, without many surprises in the middle. That did lead to one key change from last week’s Power Rankings for Seven!: The Rusical, which might make a real difference heading into the finale in two weeks!

(Want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World outside of the UK? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best international drag superstar win!

Drag Race Belgique Season 2, Episode 7 – Paquets Cadeaux makeover challenge Power Rankings

March 15, 2024 by krisis

Bon retour, mes chers lecteurs, dans plus de classements! Drag Race Belgique Season 2 Episode 7 was Paquets Cadeaux, a makeover challenge of the loved ones of our Top 4. It is also the final power ranking of the season prior to next week’s grande finale!

Late season makeover challenges like Paquets Cadeaux seem to exist solely to give the Drag Race judges the freedom to assign top and bottom placements as they please. The idea of “resemblance” is often subjective, which helps them eliminate unwanted queens and make the standings more even for the impending finale.

That was abetted by this final four, three of whom seemed to passionately resist the directive that they have a mother/daughter relationship with their makeover partners. All three brought high-concept costumes (moon & stars, pirates, and rats) and seemed to actively resist Rita’s advice in the workroom to do more to make their relationship clear.

It was a letdown to see three of these artists refuse to accept the prompt, but it was a delight to see Rita Baga attempt to convince them. Rita was perhaps at her most charming from both seasons of the show during her workroom walkaround. It gave me the sense that while she is a willing and able judge, she would likely be more at home hosting a talk show or a variety series. I actually rewound several times just to appreciate her silliness and banter with the queens and their loved ones.

In this end, this makeover challenge came with an unexpected twist: the judges DID NOT use it to cut an obvious fourth-place contestant from the finale! Instead, they boldly risked their front-runner in a lip sync clearly earmarked as a “double shantay.”

I think it was the right move. It gave a seemingly flawless finalist a small sense of vulnerability (even though that was entirely manufactured). And, it brought along a wildcard to the finale who can actually dance – which will be useful, since the episode will feature Beyoncé’s choreographer!

Despite all of that turbulence, our Power Rankings haven’t changed at all since last week’s “Le Crime du Drag Express” acting challenge! A late-game surge from one competitor wasn’t enough to unseat our obvious potential-winner, and another bottom performance wasn’t enough for a third-place queen to sink beneath our wild card. I’ll be back with one final post next week to congratulate our winner.

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

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

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 10 – Werq the World “Power” & True Colors runway Power Rankings

March 10, 2024 by krisis

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 10 was a mash-up of a Girl Groups songwriting challenge and an election year voting challenge with Werq the World “Power” – a legit funk tune produced by Leland with a message of empowerment. Plus, a “True Colors” runway that let the queens play to their strengths (even when that turned out to be a weakness).

As a rock music nerd, I cannot tell you how excited I was to see a band on Drag Race credibly miming along to a track. “Power” is a legit funk pop and I love the nasty hook that uses Dorian Mode to give us a tritone of the major sixth against the minor third.

(The melody on the hook is E – F# – G – D – C#. In E-Minor, that C# would be a C. An E-Minor scale with a sharp 6th is called Dorian Mode. The G-(D)-C# leap is a tritone – it’s using the flatted 5th of the G to make a discordant sound even though they’re both a part of the Dorian Mode scale. Think “The SIMP sons” but as “The sons SIMP.”)

Pushing the queens to put on a high-energy performance to such a rocking track gave us one of the most energetic, entertaining music challenges we’ve had on the show. I’m only able to make some of the nitpicks I do in the Power Rankings below because I’ve rewatched this so many times!

This funky challenge proved the power queens have to control their own fate on this show when it comes to challenges that hinge on pure talent. In last week’s Neo-Goth design challenge Power Rankings I had Morphine Love Dion locked in for elimination because the judges weren’t giving her many positive notes. She week she delivered a decisive win, schooling the entire cast on what it means to show up and show out in a singing performance while other queens struggled. That means some major shake-ups in the Power Rankings… and not from the queen you might expect.

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best drag queen win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2, Episode 5 – Seven!: The Rusical Power Rankings

March 9, 2024 by krisis

I’m back with more coverage of the Drag Olympics of Drag Race! RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2 Episode 5 – Seven!: The Rusical, a live-singing blend of Rusical and Girl Groups challenges with a “When I Glow Up” redemption runway of past looks.

Seven!: The Rusical is a direct lift from SIX, a rock/pop opera musical staged like a concert delivered by the six wives of Henry VIII – two of whom we met last week in Snatch Game! The Drag Race version of the musical is slightly less rangy in pop styles, mostly coming off like five subtle remixes of “Express Yourself” with a pair of unusual outliers rather than seven distinct songs from different music genres.

Much like “Drag Race World” in Episode 3, I think this episode (and the queens) suffered from poor production choices in what could have been an all-time great episode given their level of talent.

This Rusical was subtitled, “Confessions of a Drag Queen,” but Ru never fully defined what those confessions ought to be. In the original SIX, each queen confesses the story of her own love affair via a catchy pop tune. Each song could be effortlessly excerpted to radio without revealing it originated in a musical. Here, all of the queens merely confessed the stories of their runs on the show, trending towards tepid lyrics in the category of “look at me, I sashayed away, I’m gonna snatch the crown!” Only one queen (La Grande Dame) fully broke out of this model to deliver a verse entirely about herself.

Beyond the lack of direction for the songwriting, there was also a lackluster “vocal coaching” session with pop artist Self Esteem. After seeing some truly brilliant singing and songwriting advice on the recent Canada’s Drag Race Season 4, Self Esteem was a real letdown as a coach.

On Canada, the performance coaches treated the songs seriously – as if they were responsible for making improvements to a song that would really be released to radio with their names on it. They edited lyrics, revised melodies, and coached queens on delivery and support. By contrast, Self Esteem left the queens stuck with some easily-fixable problems… and for at least one queen she made her verse worse.

I’m not sure if Self Esteem was too starstruck by being on the show or if she simply isn’t a very talented songwriter, but she failed these queens. (Her lip sync track would suggest the latter.)

Finally, there was the failure of the choreography – or, lack thereof. I know next week is a full-on dancing challenge, so it didn’t make sense to have this challenge also hinge on learning professional choreography. Yet, a Rusical without choreography just doesn’t hit the same – especially on the same day we got an American franchise episode choreographed by Jamal Sims. (More on that tomorrow!) That’s what made this more of a Girl Groups challenge than a Rusical despite the title – the choreo was mostly walking and pointing.

I’ll make my own confession: I’m fully annoyed to be delivering this week’s Power Rankings, with a newly-solidified Top 4 compared to last week’s Snatch Game Power Ranking. This episode made clear that one queen who is crushing the season isn’t in true contention for the crown, while another queen delivering barely-adequate performances is Ru’s chosen one. Meanwhile, the three queens between them continue to deliver terrific performances each week.

(Want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World outside of the UK? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best international drag superstar win!

Drag Race Belgique Season 2, Episode 6 – Le Crime du Drag Express Power Rankings

March 8, 2024 by krisis

Bon retour, mes chers lecteurs, dans plus de classements! Drag Race Belgique Season 2 Episode 6 was Le Crime du Drag Express, a murder mystery acting challenge in the style of Agatha Christa paired with a “Tenues Saxy” saxophone runway.

I think this was one of the strongest episodes of the season. That’s not only because we are now down to a smaller group of queens. I think this is a cast that benefits from attacking structured material rather than writing, constructing, and choreographing it all themselves. This was a well-written acting challenge by Drag Race standards and it had incredibly high production value compared to the green screen affairs of the American franchise.

Also, the subject matter was especially appealing to me because I got my start as a performer acting in Agatha Christie plays! My high school produced an Agatha Christie play every other year, and I went from being a bitchy butler with one scene as a Sophomore to the lead investigator with 115 pages of dialog as a senior! That made it fun to see how these queens dealt with roles of different sizes and differing levels of plot intrigue.

Of note, one of Christie’s main recurring characters was mustachioed investigator Hercule Poirot – a former Belgian police officer.

(Sometimes it seems like I’ve got a personal backstory for every kind of Drag Race challenge! I swear, this is just my actual life! I think I just grew up in the perfect period to catch many of the campy references that Ru and the producers still bring to the show, and I’ve now spent decades in both the performing arts and in marketing. That’s why I love this show so damn much – it really does draw directly from my life experiences all the time.)

With just one more week before the finale, our Power Rankings have gotten incredibly tight compared to last week’s Snatch Game power ranking. I think we have an obvious winner, but there is still tight competition for the 2nd and 3rd spots – and one queen could wind up playing a major spoiler next week

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

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