The first season of RuPaul's All Stars Drag Race came and went in six short weeks. The show was a huge experiment in form and to call it divisive is an understatement. Poor Michelle Visage had to explain every week during a fun interactive video chat (The Elimination Lunch) that having the queens compete in teams was only unpopular because it was new and, yes, having them compete individually would have been great but that's not what happened so suck it up and deal.
I rather liked the season because the cast was very strong. You had wild cards like Mimi Imfurst and Tammie Brown who didn't last very long on their seasons but had strong real world resumes. You had most of the runners-up (everyone but Phi Phi O'Hara) and second runners-up (no Rebecca Glasscock). You even had all the Miss Congeniality winners and Shannel, to boot. This was a great blend of contestants and styles.
The finale even came down to a camp queen, an alt/edgy queen, a celebrity impersonator, and a showgirl. Go back a week and you add on another alt/edgy queen and a pageant queen. That's diversity and it created great tension in the workroom.
The challenges were strong, as well. The main stage challenges were all remixes of old challenges. The finale combined the Absolut marketing challenge from Season 2 with the stand-up challenge from Season 3 in three stages. The celebrity impersonation challenge mashed together the acting challenge (like Disco shortening or the sci-fi movie) with the regular Snatch Game format for some interesting tasks. The mini challenges (aka Ru trolling the contestants) were all new, including the perfectly absurd Skirts Vs. Skins daytime drag basketball challenge.
The only sticking point was the team aspect. I think it was a good twist that probably went on a week too long. In the real world, every entertainer has to work with other entertainers. This applies to drag and every other performing art. Even if you're the only one onstage, someone else is switching on your mic and turning on the lights. It was a great way to parse out the pros willing to roll with the punches from the contestants only there for themselves.
Pandora Boxx got caught up in the twist and helped send her team home first. Nina Flowers and Tammie Brown got caught up in their friendship and allowed their fun to trump their performance duties, resulting in their elimination. From there, the teams gelled well and actually helped elevate the contest.
Here's what we know. Logo picked up All Stars for a six episode run. Could you imagine if they only invited seven or eight contestants? People would be complaining nonstop about the lack of contestants (Phi Phi's fans have been especially vocal about her non-inclusion, but you can't please everyone). The single elimination format would have grown tired as quickly as the Project Runway All Stars seasons. Bringing back contestants people will talk about isn't enough when nothing else changes. They can handle one contestant leaving at a time and strategize accordingly.
The teams were a convenient way to include more contestants and raise the challenge level. The only other possibility with that time span and a wide pool of contestants would have been multiple eliminations every week. They would have to cut contestants after the mini challenges, which are just designed as flavor text for the episode and as a fun, positive element of the show. The could also have had three person lip syncs and only saved one contestant. They also could have instituted a scoring system for the judges, taking the final decision for one queen each week out of Ru's hands. You know, the host who doesn't make eye contact with the other judges when the contestants are in the room? That would go over well.
Those are all very inconvenient and confusing ways to truncate the season. Imagine the outrage if Chad Michaels went home in the finale first because he couldn't play basketball to save his life. That has nothing to do with drag performance; it's a gag for the audience. Or what if Pandora Boxx was voted off by the judges in the first week without even a chance to redeem herself in a lip sync? That would be just as bad.
The only change I would make would be to break the teams up at the top four, not the finale. That way, the show would have ended with the traditional top three and a single elimination before the final lip sync. They also could have randomly shuffled the teams at the top 6 to really test how well the queens could perform under pressure. That could have been a fun twist.
RuPaul is a shrewd showrunner. He knew exactly what he was doing making All Stars a team competition. Whether it was the best of all possible formats is beside the point. This is what Logo offered and RuPaul, once again, delivered the best show he could.
What did you think of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars? Who would you want to see on a future season? Sound off below.