Now that’s you’ve had one entire day to recover from the buffoonery, riggery and straight up tomfoolery of the RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 3 finale, are you ready to cleanse your palette with a brightly-colored group of 14 new queens?

Well, ready or not, here they come: Drag Race Season 10 begins on Thursday March 22, and it’s bringing with it some majorly polished looks and massive personalities.

This is the first of a many-week marathon of Power Ranking the queens of Drag Race Season 10, so let me get you acquainted with what this is and what it is not.

First: My rankings are not meant to be a prediction of the queens’ final placement! Especially for this pre-season ranking, it’s more like a handicapping of who seems ready to burst out of the gate with strength. I’ve made some good picks in the past (Bob The Drag Queen) and some weaker ones (Tempest du Jour).

Second: This is not purely my list of favorite queens. It’s about who has the perceived heat and narrative momentum coming out of each week of the competition.

Finally: My rankings are not just about “track record.” I am sick of that phrase after the complaints about the past two winners of Drag Race. Sometimes a queen’s Wikipedia-accurate track record does not tell the story of her narrative arc on the show.

I think fans who focus on the wins and losses to a fault wind up unnecessarily surprised by the winner of this show, which has story editors whose job it is to leave us a narrative breadcrumb trail. The only big shocker of my five seasons of ranking this show has been Shangela getting eliminated by the jury of her queers this week before she could snatch the crown.

Will my outstanding track record (ha!) continue this season? You’ll have to check back every week to find out!

This first week of rankings is a non-binding, pre-season evaluation based on the cast’s “Meet The Queens” interviews and a smattering of their online media. One note to keep in mind is that the queens did not necessarily choose their own outfits or styling for their promo looks, so we cannot just go by their looks in judging their qualities!

All right, racers – let’s get started. And may the best woman … win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 10 Power Rankings – Meet The Queens