#also i think they should let him have a bitchy moment in s5 for old times' sake

[theseventhveil1945]

STEVE HARRINGTON 1.06 | "The Monster"

[ace-pervert]

Ive finished watching eleven seasons of rupauls drag race and now feel I am ready to briefly review each season

S1: A good start though it must be said, ONGINA WAS ROBBED! Also there was favoritism.

S2: Not a bad season but at least somewhat ruined by Rupauls rather overt favoritism towards Tyra and dislike of Pandora. While I didnt like Tyra on the show his callout of the entire drag community after leaving drag has given me massive respect for him and feels like karma for RuPauls rather blatant self promotion and attempts to turn himself into some kind of rolemodel. But aside from the callout and Jujube, and Pandora the season is unmemorable.

S3: The top three were all highly skilled and the winner seemed to deserve it though that was later put into doubt after it came to light that Raja had worked with RuPaul before the show aired, and lets be honest Manilla Luzon was much more talented.

S4: One of the best seasons in drag race history, has the best music video, and Sharron Needles is hands down the most influential and versatile queen in drag race history. The only bad part, aside from the editing against phi phi, is Latrice Royal, who, and I feel this needs to be said, wouldnt have been in the top four had Willam stayed, and certainly wouldnt have made top five if Alaska had been allowed to join, mostly because she kept showing a similar outfit, her not being a particularly good actor, being thrown off really easily, and quickly relying on a shtick.

S5: Good season, but I feel that Roxxxy really did end up in the top three only because Visage and Ru love drama and the Jersey Shore look that was at the time Roxxxy Andrews trademark look, and the Coco Alyssa drama was really dull, neither deserved to be as high as ended up, and ultimately both queens are unmemorable.

S6: Not a bad season but i'm not a fan of Courtney Act or miss Lake, mostly because I think they both get away with looks that really they shouldnt have gotten away with, though arguable so did Bendelacreme. Though it was nice that there wasnt any drama, and Bianca del Rio is really funny.

S7: Ive tried to come up with words to describe this season, I cant, its just that bad. No not bad just dull, really dull and awkward, and the worst part is that its not the queens who drag the season down, the queens themselves are fine and Pearl stands out as being a particularly interresting person when not on drag race, its RuPaul being a tool off camera and coming up with challenges that play to the queens weaknesses rather strengths.

S8: Unfortunately I found Bob the Drag Queen so attractive out of drag that I stopped caring about what he looked like in drag with the end result being that I have no idea if hes a good drag queen. But ignoring the moments where I was drooling over Bob it was a good season with some truly great outfits,and a good Snatch Game, that wether for good or bad did very quickly become the Bob the drag queen and Kim Chi show, making it in hindsight the second most plann

S9: The season started off with an appearance by Lady Gaga , whose reviews of the outfits consisted of little more than name dropping and not much else, unintentionally setting the tone for a dull and awkward season with a cheerleading challenge that causes one person to crack a rib and another to almost permanently lose their ability to dance, a Reality Star Rusical that is well just dull, painfully bad lipsinks, uninterresting outfits, and perhaps the blandest wierd drag queen in the history of the competition. Its also in this season that introduced the lipsink for the crown format that I personally despise as it takes the power away from the viewers and puts it back in Rupauls hand.

S10: Solid season, mostly focused on returning contestant Eureka but the other contestants are given enough focus that it feels natural. The challenges are interresting to watch, the snatchgame is funny, and the dresses are well made. The top four are all stars in their right and the winner of that season could have easily been any of them, making this the only season where a lipsink for the crown made sense.

S11: Starts off strong with people like Miss Vanjie, Brooke Lynne Hytes, Nina West and Yvie Oddly revealing a high degree of skill both as actors and as dress makers. Unfortunately the blatant favoritism of Rupaul, the judges, and the producers towards Silky Nutmeg Ganache (honestly they seem like a nice person in real life, but on the show they just seem like a tool), unimaginative challenges, distracting and irritating cameos by former drag race contestants including by Bianca whos dull and unentertaining appearance shows exactly why contestants shouldnt return at all, a rusical so god cringeworthy you'll pray for death (Trump the Rusical), the worst snatch game in drag race history, and painfully predictable twists result in a terrible season, with the only interresting things being the romance between Vanjie and Brooke (they broke up four months after the last episode before the reunion due to conflicting schedules), Miss Vanjie being well himself, Nina Wests acting, and Yvie Oddly's outfits .

S12: Havent seen it, but lets be honest this season is the one where the star is a sex offender. By now many fans have analysed the season and its become clear that the person who was intended to be the focal point and possible winner was Sherry Pie, which means that editing them out for very well known reasons also makes them the focal point just in a different way than intended. Hell it wouldnt surprise me if this season becomes known as the one with Sherry Pie, not the one where the winner won. Though it might also be the last season that RuPauls on, as there are rumors that hes stopping with drag race.

The Christmass Special: To short for a christmass special, to much like the other episodes to be special, to blatantly commercial to be Christmass, and to scripted, even by drag race standards, to be drag race.

And now for a review of the Judges themselves

RuPaul: On the outside a warm, outspoken, well meaning person whose done things which are truly groundbreaking. But beneath that warm exterior beats the stone cold heart of a businessman. He's calculating, manipulative, greedy, has no qualms about setting queens up for failure, and ultimately hasnt done much that could be seen as groundbreaking. Perhaps the worst part is that its clear that in terms of humor , mentality and fashion hes never left the 70s, which combined with his callous way of treating the enviroment (as shown by his fracking empire) and his history of transpobia, makes him a liability to the show. Even if you manage to ignore all of that, the show is ultimately about the drag queens, not about Rupaul, and Rupauls attemps to make it about him really drag the show down

Michelle Visage: Shes a mother of two teenagers with a stay at home husband pretending to be a bitchy whore on a tv show about drag queens, yeah thats her career. Now in truth thats not the biggest issue, the biggest issue is that shes got hangups and makes the same jokes over over again and that after being on the show for ten years she hasnt developed as a judge so the routine, to paphrase miss Visage herself, has been done to death. In truth the show needs something other than the same damn shtick and same damn comments all the time, and if she cant do it then she should quite so someone else can do it for her. Ok maybe thats the second biggest issue, the biggest is that she kisses RuPaul's ass untill it shines brighter than a mirror.

Valentino Rice: Good judge, and had great chemistry with the other judges.

Ross Mathews: Cute guy, wierdly charming, and interacts well with the others.

Carson Kressley: He comes across as a very tired, very frail, very gay but very very very dull ninety year old man, which makes sense given the fact that his entire career is based on being gay, and hes, well old. Ok hes not really old, hes 50, but on camera he looks and acts closer to 150. And the issue isnt that hes gay, its that hes doing a shtick, a very dull and fairly offensive shtick. Possibly the worst choice for a judge, and the show jumps in quality whenever hes not there.

Now for a few things that just bug me.

Favoritism: Unfortunately one of the biggest issues of the show is that seasons tend to be structured around Queens who are intended to be the winner, or at least the hero, from the get go, which has the advantage of allowing the creators of the show to change the structure and challenges from season to season, but also makes it hard to watch if the season is blatant in its favoritism, if the intended winner isnt that good, or if the winner gets eliminated for one reason or another.

Cameos by former contestants: Cameos are a great way to get people to say "I know that person" which is great in a tv show because you know that the cast wont change in the next episode, but not great in a competition where all it does is take away screentime from competitors and giving it to competitors who most likely did not do well enough to win in their own drag race, and even if they did, the show is not about them, but about the current contestants. As such if Ru wants them to return he should put them in All Stars.

Cameos by celebrities: Add nothing. Its drag race not the red carpet, i'm watching for the up and coming drag queens not famous people trying to boost their careers.

Adding politics to the show: No, just no. Dont do things like Trump the Rusical, dont have steven colbert do a voiceover, theres no way that can go well and it comes accross as virtue signaling. If Ru wants to do something good he should double the prize money and have half of the money go to a charity of the winners choosing, or stop fracking.

Adding politics outside of the Show: Drag queens are celebrities and entertainers, as such are constantly in the public eye and dependent on being in it for their income which means that anything they say in public, wether its gossiping, or discussing politics, needs to be viewed as being some form of self promotion. Now this might make things difficult for them, but it is a well known part of being an entertainer so it can be assumed that they were well aware of this before they joined Drag Race. If they do want to talk about politics without being viewed as self promoting, they are free to make an anonymous account on one of the many sites, like tumblr, where its assumed that no one knows who the other people are.

Family Friendly Drag: Lets be honest its men shoving their cocks up their own asses while dressing up as women, and naking refferences to sex, for the sake of entertainment. Thers nothing family friendly about it. Nor should there be as part of the appeal of drag is that its something that is restricted to adults. Likewise they arent heroes, they are entertainers, not doctors, not construction workers, entertainers no more worthy of praise then a person on a sitcom.

Drama outside of Drag Race: While drama on the show is to be expected and is part of what makes it entertaining, drama outside of the show is different its more personal and something that in truth should not be shared. However by presenting it as gossip on various shows they are saying its part of the show, which is unhealthy at best.

Final note.

While I am critising the Drag Race, I am not doing it because I dislike the show, I am infact a big fan of the show but at the same time I want to get my thoughts out there see how others view these topics.

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Change of plan, decided to get season 1 out of the way, so I can really get some groundwork. So technically, this is the first true experience of Ninjago.

-Right off the bat, 13 episodes felt too much. I’m glad that future seasons after S2 go down to maximum 10 for the most part. -Honestly the plot is all over the place. The first six episodes are kinda moral episodes, then apparently someone writing Tick Tock said “Actually, I have this kickass angst idea for Zane and I want to use” and the show decided now would be the time to drop the original approach. -Speaking of which, how many fetch quests can you squeeze in one season where there’s just absolute failure on the protagonists’ part? They couldn’t stop the five tribes getting together, and they did not stop one Fangblade being taken by Pythor. It got ridiculous. -That said, the Serpentine are way better than the Skeleton Army, or at least Pythor and Skales are. Pythor is just so hammy it’s fun, and Skales has some real neat setup in the first episodes to establish his moral root (and his eventual heel-face in later seasons, I’m aware of that one). -Some surprising character debuts. The mailman isn’t, but Mystake is already here which I wasn’t expecting for a few seasons yet. -In terms of main characters, Wu and Garmadon are weird. Wu spends half his time in the same bitchy sensei mode as the pilots, but then he has this side story in the underworld and it becomes a story of him trying to save his nephew and he gets all fatherly and it’s like what. Meanwhile, the story keeps drilling in your head that Garmadon is this evil dude yet his evil acts can be counted on one hand. He eventually steps up his game right at the end so I guess that was all S2 set-up (meaning the OG Garmadon was a central villain for one season. He had more evil time after his SoG resurrection!). The family bonding was nice to see after he was so bland in the pilots though. -Nya is more active in S1 which is nice, but it’s still moonlighting as Samurai X as I mentioned. I did not realise that the mystery lasted for all of one episode, so at least there’s not lengthy periods of time where Nya is pretending to be on the sidelines when out as Samurai X. Still really weird that they chose to do it this way until S5 but hey. -Lloyd is fantastic. He’s amusing as a brat and as the green Ninja, and my heart just sorrows at the pain is about to be put through. Weirdly enough, even ignoring the foreshadowing, Lloyd was always the perfect candidate to be the green Ninja. Think about it; he’s adaptable, cunning, determined, persevering, trusting, reflexive, agile, and this all traits from before he even turned good. He was gifted for a 10-12 year old. -Zane is a sweetheart who only had minor fumbles with the green Ninja thing, but he should still be protected at all costs. -Jay’s character is shaky at times, but overall comes out pretty good. The Jaya moments he has in S1 are sweet, and both Nya and Jay drive it naturally (which is good, because the way it was started in the pilot was really clunky). -Worst characters by far in S1 are Kai and Cole. They spend 90% of the time are meathead bullies, and some of it dips so cruelly I can’t root for them. They try to clear it up once we get to the full potential stuff, but too little too late man. Just let me punt these bitches off a cliff and let their S12 selves take over. -The choreography is still pretty piss poor. I didn’t mention it before but now you know. -The Great Devourer ain’t that great. Giant generic snake, woo.  -That being said;

Ed:  *Trying to start his jalopy* Oh, boy. Oh, gosh. Oh, golly. Oh, gosh. *Meanwhile Harumi’s parents lie dead under a building collapse while the child is scarred for life*

-Worst episode by a country mile is “Home”. What were they thinking, making a whole episode where all the ninja bully Zane for being different, regardless of how much Zane does not deserve that and how little sense it makes for Jay and Cole to do that with their history prior to Kai. And it wasn’t a special episode, it was set-up for a different twist. -Best episode...my heart wants to say “The Royal Blacksmiths” because it comes so out of left field in terms of how Cole and Kai are characterised, plays out like a near-legit coming out story (how did they do it this way by accident??) and has so much homoerotic tension between said Ninja. But the correct answer has to be “Tick Tock”. I know Zane is a robot (it’s a central point in S11 and S12), but I was expecting the reveal in S3. So when I realised where the episode was going it was a gut punch all the same, and Zane getting his memories back is legit heartbreaking. -The season also has one of the better first episodes.  -Also yeah this entire season is pretty good for Lava, although Jay and Zane do get plenty to do this time.

As it’s own thing, S1 is generally decent. However, there are some big lows in this season (mostly near the start), and I think some characters just can’t get through it without mud on their face.

As part of the wider Ninjago story, it’s made something apparent that kinda more depressing; the writers have lots of ideas for where Jay and Zane’s characters can go, even if the direction isn’t always met with enthusiasm. Even Nya and Lloyd have had strong stories to run off from the start. Kai and Cole feel like the writers don’t know what to do with them. They had to throw some drama for Cole, so they shoved in the dance thing, Kai needed more conflict, so they tacked on him being more obsessed with the green Ninja power than anyone else even though this was equal for all four at the start of the season. Outside of S1, they either get no arcs, get shunted into other arcs thus wrecking them (Jaya...:( ), repeat arcs that were done with seasons prior or just the most cliche, uninspired stories you could make. 

With the last two seasons going back to roots, I wonder if they have looked at S1 again and realised that this is something that should be examined again, what with the spoilers for S12 and S13. Only time will tell. 

I won’t review seasons over the weekend, that time is reserved for Prime Empire, and I know I’ll enjoy that more.