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General Discussion
So, now that we've been deprived of so many minutes and episodes feel so short, I've seen a lot of (warranted) negativity around here, but what parts of the show could you just do without?
For me, I've seen a lot of people complaining about the lack of the judges' deliberation, but I personally don't miss that part at all, in fact, I would gladly shorten the judges' critiques and Rupaul's conversation with the judges in favour for more time in the workroom, more confessionals, more time with the cast in general. Often the judges' critiques are very generic, short sighted and just unnecessary. Not to mention how rarely do they bring in guest judges for any reason other than being famous and don't know anything about drag/the kind of challenge at hand (in AS6 for example they brought in Zaldy, a designer, for the popstar challenge and Charli XCX, a popstar, for the design challenge, like WTF???? If you ain't gonna bring drag queens to judge drag at least have actors judge acting, singers judge singing, designers judge designing and etc.).
What about y'all???
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A few queens, honestly. Go back to 12 contestants instead of thinking more is better.
Depends how many eps get commissioned, surely? If you have 12 queens to fill 15 eps you're going to get all kinds of chocolate bar/Kandy Wait riggory of the kind that just annoys people. It's a tough one: more eps from the channel either means too many queens or too many eps where nobody goes home.
I want shorter seasons too - but yes I understand if a network asks for more eps they probably need more queens.
Even with the shorter episodes we still get some trauma when the girls are getting ready for the runway and it usually involves someone crying. I’m so over that. As soon as the main challenge is over I now fast forward to when Ru comes out ok the main stage. Enough with the obviously prompted emotional porn conversations to win awards!
It's even weirder now that they don't include any other getting ready buffoonery, just straight trauma cuts
Agree so much, I thought I was being heartless for being absolutely sick of hearing about people’s trauma, I get it, being gay is hard, I know that because I am gay
We all know they shouldn't be shortening episodes for the real time wasters of weho. BUT if I had to I could do without:
- Awkward workroom conversations obviously facilitated by production
- Rumail
- Ru's canned banter with the judging panel
The scripted jokes with the judging panel always give me secondhand embarrassment.
Ross Matthews
Or guest judges who aren't drag race mega fans
I know it's not until the final 4 (Or 5? whatever we're doing now), but I would be happy to never again see another "What would you say to Little (Government Name)?" segment. Also, please perma cut any "Who do you think should go home tonight and why?".
I always fast forwarded those parts even on the earlier seasons. I hate it.
I don't miss the "pun-heavy you're safe, go to the werkroom" line up
But I miss mostly all the rest 😢
I think the best critique I heard was on the podcast keep it and they said the episodes are fine at one hour, but we could do with less queens and I agree with that. It used to be an hour and it’s fine to go back to an hour, but goddamn were never gonna get to know the queens when there’s like 30 of them
Hopefully by episode eight the queens will all have more screentime
the idea of waiting 4 more weeks to get to see queens have an equal share of screentime saddens me
The thing is it was made with 90 minute episodes in mind and then when they got told it was 60 minutes they haven't been editing it accordingly if that makes sense
It definitely makes sense, it’s a shame it’s happened that way. Hopefully if they have a show with mtv next time around they’ll cast differently.
Or MTV will allow them to have a 90 minute slot
I don't miss the trauma mining mirror talks. They could definitely cut more of the post-mortem from the previous season (not all, just more) and I definitely do need the judges' critiques. They could skip the canned banter with the intros, though, and do a judge intro like on Canada's Drag Race: "Tonight: with Carson Cressley, [guest judge], Michelle Visage, and RuPaul!" with side-by-side montages of the first three and then a solo runway for Ru. It saves so much time. Rumail is also pointless, since Ru is about to walk in and just tell them what the challenge is, anyway.
I need the judges critiques, it's a freaking competition!!
The repetetive, forced and predictable mirror trauma dumps are unbearable for me. I literally skip them every single time. Like how many times do we have to hear the same 3-4 stories of queer struggle??
I’m not minimizing the power of sharing these stories. But it just feels so forced. It just feels like every queen has been promised a minute of screen time for the season to discuss their trauma. And we are just going down the list. First Malaysia, then Loosey, who will be next?
Is it too much to ask for more queer joy to be shown? Like in the year of our lord 2023, we get it, we get that growing up queer is hard. Just getting tired of hearing about it every single week in such a predictable way.
Here’s what I don’t miss:
Morning table chat. Always feels like they just go until there’s conflict.
The Ru mail. Taking it out proves it adds nothing because Ru always comes in and explains the challenge immediately after.
deliberations help the viewer form opinions but the decisions so far feel fair so it’s obvious how the highs/lows are landing this season.
longer workroom chats pre-runway. This was the segment that started to feel really dragged out. When I think of seasons 10-14, this the segment I wish they’d prune. A lot of gold comes from it but half of the convos are forced/prompted.
every queen having a ‘moment’. I’m okay with queens blending into the walls. It’s usually the ones I don’t find interesting anyway. If they matter to the season their storyline will show.
What I miss:
longer runways every single time.
Overall:
I think some pruning can help a show be more entertaining and certain aspects of the new (or should I say return to the old) editing that work for me. Philippines would have been so much better if those episodes were cut tighter. However, I think another ten minutes would benefit S15. It does feel cut down, whereas the earlier seasons with less queens didn’t so much. I think it’ll work a lot better when we’re at halfway onwards and there’s less queens to cram in. Once the season is finished, it might work better as a whole piece in the inevitable binge re-watching.
I didn't even notice the rumail was gone
drama mirror, judge deliberations and most mini-challlenges do nothing for me tbh. i always skip through those
Ru's runway entrance - the walk and judges' intro feels fine/necessary, but I don't need to see lights switching on and close ups of makeup brushes.
It wouldn't free up a lot of time, and if we still had longer episode run times, it wouldn't bother me.. but I didn't realise until Pitstop this week that I'd completely missed Anetra's runway somehow. Just seems silly to waste those seconds on so much nothing when there's a lot more to see.
I could also do without the really bad jokes when introducing the judges and guest judges. It's always cringey and you really only need to introduce one new person.
The moment where they fake congratulate the winner for 5 minutes. Put that in untucked and give us more actual werkroom drama/fun moments. (No need for tears)
I do miss the snatch game walkthrough, just because it’s interesting to see whether ru is proven right or not. Like, the Gordon/gorgena Ramsey thing was probably an interesting convo.
I miss everything that each of you is saying. I miss it alllll
I miss our "narrator queen" of the season saying "IT'S ANOTHER DAY in the werkroom, and I'm feeling...."
I could live without The Hilarious Ross Matthews.