It’s Snatch Game, people! Ru didn’t even waste time on a mini challenge this week. The contestants were told to do their best celebrity impersonations for the annual game show that separates the contenders from the pretenders.
The contestants who chose funny characters did well. The contestants who didn’t chose funny characters did poorly. Not even a RuPaul-themed runway presentation could save the bottom three from their horrible work in Snatch Game. It’s Season 6. You know the challenge has appeared every year from Season 2. How could you not prepare a comedy character before coming?
It’s the natural evolution of the RuPaul ballet challenge last year: a Rusical. It’s hard to imagine that there hasn’t been a musical theater challenge on RuPaul’s Drag Race, but there hasn’t been. Since Season 2, there has always been a singing challenge. Now we have the triple threat challenge.
Spoiler alert: everyone was amazing. This should be the Emmy episode. Deny them the Reality Show/Host nominations this season, Emmy voters, I dare you.
Finally, another horror episode. We haven’t had a horror-themed challenge on RuPaul’s Drag Race since Season 4. That was the season premiere episode where Sharon Needles proved her craft and justified her position in the contest with an amazing post-apocalyptic zombie. Bonus points were duly awarded for flawless use of theatrical blood capsules.
Though my cynical prediction for the bottom two from last week was totally wrong, I was right about the quality of contestants in the second season premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race. These girls really brought it. Even the bottom 2 would have been safe on any other season of the show so far.
Recap
In a twisted fit of brilliance, the producers decided to throw a little party for the six surviving queens from last week after the runway. Then Ru showed up in full mud mask and curlers to kick the queens out of the studio. The brilliance? They left the mess all night long for the next group of queens to find when they walked into the workroom for the first time.
Forever and a day ago, I did elaborate, photo-driven, cartoon-styled recaps of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I really enjoyed the result, but it was very labor intensive. It required watching the episodes multiple times each just in the hopes that the buffer for HD would load in time for a clear screen grab to work from. Doing those recaps meant less time writing, more time screaming that everything wasn’t going right.
This season, I’m covering the show again, though I’m doing it in a different way. I toyed with a Project Runway recap a couple seasons ago that just didn’t go anywhere. However, the format was good: a quick recap of the episode, followed by a ranked list of the contestants’ performance on the show. That’ll work much better on a show where you can still care about who is competing.
We’ve reached the Face Off season finale where, once again, the contestants had to do a lot of makeup for a live stage performance. I love that as a finale challenge. I just wish that, you know, the contestants painted for the back row considering it was a ballet challenge. You couldn’t really see the details during the dance. That’s not good. Live theater doesn’t come with one on one closeup examinations to fully understand the concept.
For the finale, I took the unused theme–the Roaring 20′s (Hello, flapper girl to swan transformation. Why you not obvious to the finalists?)–and tried out a new style of diorama. I originally wanted to paint a backdrop and draw the characters and accessories on card stock, but I had no way to house the finished project. The answer was literally in front of me the whole time. No, really. Those gift boxes have been right smack in the middle of my workshop for years.
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Guillermo del Toro opens the Animation Domination Halloween specials with great style.
I have to give Fox credit for one thing. For the second year in a row, The Simpsons Halloween episode will be airing before Halloween. That’s a big deal when they’ve aired the weekend before Thanksgiving before more than once. In fact, all four Fox animated shows currently on the air–The Simpson, Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy, and American Dad–are airing their 2013 Halloween episodes tonight. That’s a major improvement for American Dad that used their Halloween episode (the amazing Cee-Lo Green composed Little Shop of Horrors parody with a hot tub) as their season premiere last year.
This is a great way to kick off the most festive time of the year. Since I’m so dedicated to amazing horror content, I’ll be reviewing the Halloween episodes. All four of the shows pull out all the stops for Halloween. Who will come out on top? The smart money is on American Dad but Bob’s Burgers does really wry holiday episodes. Family Guy is totally hit or miss and The Simpsons are only as good as their worst sketch of the night.
First up is The Simpsons. This is “Treehouse of Horror XXIV,” which means only one season did not have a Halloween episode. Guillermo del Toro is tasked with the opening sequence and it’s amazing. My favorite parts are the Pan’s Labyrinth references. The sheer volume of horror references is stunning. It flows in a very logical way and ends beautifully on his most critically acclaimed dark fantasy/horror work. If nothing is this good the rest of the night, I will be satisfied.
Alana’s Constructivism [click for full]
Last week on Face Off, the nine remaining artists competed in my favorite challenge ever on this show. It just stepped above the season one finale where the contestants had to create a dynamic fairy tale scene through an incongruent art style. Nothing is more inspiring for an artist of one medium than to be told to go play in another medium’s sandbox. The results are always wild and unexpected. You can’t guarantee quality. You can guarantee that the designs will be a radical departure from the artist’s previous work.
Oddly enough, this was also an art challenge. The contestants visited a huge art gallery to choose a Modern art style (capital M, people, except for Pop Art which was not of that period) to inspire a living work of art. The results were amazing.
