When RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 8 launched in May, viewers were first teased with the latest convoluted twist that the series’ producers concocted. This time around, queens who were eliminated from the show each week are automatically entered into the “Online Fame Games,” where they could win $50,000. In this very made-up-sounding, separate competition, the axed contestants could show off the high-concept looks that they didn’t get to feature on the season’s themed runways before they went home.
The Online Fame Games were actually a unique idea. The queens on All Stars work for weeks to pull together head-to-toe couture looks—literally, given that they have to prepare wigs, makeup, outfits, and shoes—that are both cohesive with each week’s theme, and singular enough to stand out in a crowd. Normally, eliminated queens will show off these complete looks on Instagram as episodes continue to air, with pre-arranged, professional photo shoots to highlight all of the remarkable details. With the Online Fame Games, the queens who were sent home had a platform to strut their stuff on an actual runway, instead of just in front of a few ring lights—and the potential to be rewarded for their efforts with prize money instead of just Instagram likes.
But the execution of this gimmick ultimately fell flat. (And on a show where bigger is always better, you never want to be flat.) The Online Fame Games were a nice idea, one that seemed like a chance to highlight the immense talent of all the contestants. But in Season 8’s penultimate episode, the Games proved to be just another disappointing twist on a show that has relied too much on trying to surprise viewers, when it should be bolstering its queens.
Throughout All Stars 8, we heard that the eliminated queens would “automatically” be entered into this separate competition. Every time RuPaul told a dejected contestant standing on stage that she was “now in the running to become Queen of the Fame Games,” it always felt as if we might see the eliminated competitor transmogrify into a bunch of 1s and 0s, and get sucked into a computer. Really, it seems they were just kept sequestered in their hotel accommodations a bit longer, waiting to return for one last talent showcase.
In this week’s episode, all nine of the eliminated contestants—save for Heidi N Closet, who forfeited her spot in the Fame Games when she removed herself from the competition—came back for one more exhibition. The challenge was to perform a number in a variety show, which is a contest usually saved for the opening episode of a Drag Race season. I thought it was strange they skipped right to a normal challenge in the All Stars 8 premiere, but this explains it: The queens were told to prepare a variety show act, just not when they’d actually be performing it.
RuPaul determined the top two All Stars in the challenge, and those two competed in a lip sync for the chance to multiply their number of fan votes in the Fame Games by two, three, or five. Depending on the number of people who actually show up to vote, that will likely rig the Fame Games, which feels like it defeats the entire purpose of this external competition.
Contestants LaLa Ri and Jaymes Mansfield, who tied in their lip sync after slaying the variety show, are probably going to be the only ones with a decent chance of scoring the cash prize. LaLa especially has an advantage, given that she scored the chance to multiply her total votes by three, while Jaymes will only have hers multiplied by two. It’s not at all undeserved for LaLa, given how sublime she was throughout this entire season—she should win Queen of the Fame Games. But it’s a lot less exciting for the home viewer and the other queens, who hoped they might have a shot at winning.
That the Fame Games served as this season’s “twist” says everything that we need to know about where Drag Race, and its primary spinoff, are right now. For years, the show has been trying to keep its increasingly massive audience hooked by implementing these twists and turns, which often have very little impact on the season’s end results. Queens who were gone too soon are welcomed to the competition, or others have to fight for one single open spot. Rules change, elimination tactics are manipulated, and Fame Games are introduced. It’s a reality show, so the constant effort to raise the stakes is not exactly unexpected.
It’s also not necessary, at least not at the current juncture. Drag Race Season 15 went its entire run without one single major plot twist, and the season was better for it. Viewers didn’t have to roll their eyes and strap in for an episode where eliminated queens would return to try to knock someone else out of the competition. Instead, we got to know the contestants more with each passing week and invest ourselves in the competition without worry some twist would throw a wrench into our good time. It felt closer to watching old-school Drag Race than the show had been in years.
These twists just aren’t necessary for the show at this point. They not only make it harder for viewers to immerse themselves in the season, but they give the competing queens the shaft, too. The Fame Games runway showcases were shoved to the back of Drag Race’s companion show, Untucked, where they were all but lost for viewers who were perfectly content to only get half the story.
What’s more, the eliminated queens seemed less than enthused in their voiceovers describing their outfits. Producers didn’t even bother to upload the Fame Game runways to the show’s official YouTube channel. That channel boasts over one million subscribers, which would have not only afforded the eliminated queens a significantly larger voting body, but made the Fame Game results much tighter, and therefore more fun for the audiences waiting on the results.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed All Stars 8, but its twist has made the experience a little less sweet. Watching something get bungled in real-time is disheartening, and Drag Race is not a franchise that wants to leave its viewers feeling discouraged. We’ve reached our twist threshold for a few seasons. At this point, the biggest twist of all would be to just give us a heaping helping of Drag Race, the original recipe: no twists, no turns, same great taste.
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