Credit: VH1 YouTube
The season 11 finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race will air Thursday, May 30, on VH1. One of three highly deserving competitors will lip sync with all their glory for the title of America’s Next Drag Superstar during what will be an intense and very emotional battle. Silky Nutmeg Ganache will also be there.
Was this a great season? Not really. I recently ranked it as one of the lower seasons as the energy this group gave overall paled in comparison to seasons in the past. Was it a complete bust? No. There were some great moments throughout, and I generally enjoyed most of the girls that entered the werk room, notably Nina West and Yvie Oddly.
There’s something nagging me, however, that needs to be said. It’s been on my mind for the past year and many of my friends and fans of the show that I’ve talked to feel the same way about it … RuPaul’s Drag Race needs to take a long winter’s nap. We need a break from RPDR for a substantial amount of time as its light that was shining so brightly has dimmed to the point where it’s getting close to being pitch black.
Let’s recap January 2018 until now:
- January 25, 2018: RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 3 premieres
- March 22, 2018: RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 10 premieres
- December 14, 2018: RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 4 premieres
- February 28, 2019: RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 11 premieres
Way. Too. Much. To have four different seasons premiere in thirteen months is a lot. It gets to the point where the creativity that RPDR was once known so well for is now force-fed down everyone’s throats to where nothing is original anymore.
Then there’s the consistently boring repeated challenges, Snatch Game pandemonium which leads to so many fans being disappointed and the All Stars rules that never really work out the way many of us want them to (Shangela, Manila, etc).
RPDR used to be once a year. It helped us get to know each individual queen so much better and allowed the show to breathe at a normal rate.
Now everything is overkill: the fashions, the fighting, the unnecessarily forced drama (Gia coming for Farrah in AS4). I can go on and on.
Mind you, this takes nothing away from the talent that these queens have brought. They are wonderful and have become huge stars since making their debut on the Emmy-winning show. Past competitors that returned for All Stars also received a bump in their notoriety and their star power blossomed.
I’m just at the point where boredom is setting in and the dreaded shark has jumped. The show needs to recharge its batteries now. Don’t come back until March 2020. No more All Stars until 2022.
We want queens in AS5 that have been successful for years and not ones that left the werk room for five minutes only to come back. You can’t be an All Star that quickly.
DragCon is the exception here for waiting to see more Ru as it takes place IRL and not on our television screens. RPDR can go the distance for many years to come, I truly believe that. But I think it isn’t a bad thing to bring it back to how it was for many years where we only watched one season per year.
Let’s breathe, untuck, refocus, and pull ourselves together.
This is the opinion of one contributing writer and not that of Instinct Magazine or other Contributing Writers.
