Taeolas

I'm fine with Gisele's win, but it should have been Gisele vs Fierce for the crown. That we didn't get the usual 3 song Lip sync for the Crown at the end was a slap in the face IMO. It made the finger on the scales all the more obvious just to throw the Top 3&4 queens out like that without any real chance to save themselves.

Yeah as soon as Donna said she hadn't won yet, I knew she was getting the W. But all in all, I had a hard time figuring out who would go home. Thirsty was about my only choice really. So I'm not all that surprised it was non-elim. Donna being Top 2 I can almost see. Not so sure Chakra being Top 7, but I'm less familiar with that song. Poppy should have been Top 2 for all those reveals; if she had done a wig reveal along the way it would have been without a doubt I'm sure. And yeah Chic was also Top 2 as well IMO, but I would've had a three way in the Top 2 ultimately. Chakra and Thirsty would have been my bottom two just from elimination.

As I said, I'm an NBer but I haven't spent much time up North. In fact I've only been up there once, and that was a school trip back in the nineties. Looks like they had perfect spring weather for their trip there. The loading challenge said they would use "SOME" of the items they are loading in the future. I bet the teams were trying to figure out what the trap would be used for, but it ended up being the chairs instead. (Though maybe a challenge was edited out; it doesn't feel that way). Damn that dance challenge really shook things up. Loved Catherine's reaction as she was trying and then finally getting it. I get the feel that a lot of the attempts were called off early, but man they were probably there for hours practicing that. I checked the map; the Glamping location is pretty much on the opposite side of Caraquet from Pokeshaw beach. Glamping is near Shippigan right on the tip, while Pokeshaw is on the north shore, on the Baie de Chaleur. So finding the alternate route was a legit tactic that paid off. I do wonder what route they took that paid off. Everyone seemed to be saying they were taking the 11 which should be the more direct route, but the 135 might be faster due to being an inland route. I just can't really see where the fork in the road is that they split up at. *Edit* Just peeked at the ep again, and the fork was a lot earlier than I expected, almost right after they left Cielo. They cut up to Evangeline. Google Maps actually suggests their route for the fastest way. The boy gained maybe 3 minutes/2km by going that way and that probably made all the difference. It was fun listening to the non NBers mangling some of our simpler names like Bathurst and Caraquet. They were close, but you could tell they weren't from around here.

I'm pretty sure that hitting other balls would be against the rules, though they may be gentlemen rules; as in if you are not obviously aiming for the other balls, it's fine if they have contact. The french challenge was good. I'm a little annoyed that it was gamed so easily, but that's the Race for you. Plus I'm an NBer so I have enough French to mostly understand it, so it seemed easier than it may be to someone with no French knowledge at all. (Frenella IIRC said they couldn't even tell where words began and ended). They were in Quebec, so a pure-French challenge made sense there.

I haven't watched the full ep yet but I saw that. With the intro from Michael J Fox, it was rough to watch, to see how that illness can tear you apart. Glad Choi got his buzzer; I was really worried with him doing Sideways first, but he got through it like a champ.

I suspect that a lot of the time, when these unreasonable times are given, it's a test of the Chef, to see if they have the backbone to step up and say "NO! I need FOUR Minutes, you will get them in FOUR minutes." Most chefs don't seem to have that sort of backbone and it leads to the drama we see. And now I wish we would get some scottish chef on the show to respond to that sort of request with "Ah cannae change the laws of physics, Chef." </Scottie>

Check your TV schedule. They may have nudged it to a different slot. My PVR shows a new ep "Raging at a Real Estate Broker" today. I think this is a new ep. Judge Mathis's new season started today as well. *Edit* The PVR said the date was 05/09/22 and the case matched the description. But the actual date on it was MMXVIII, so 2018. The courtroom was full, the cases seemed to be from 2017, and there wasn't a hint of COVID, and no hanging with the hubby. But she did get a good roasting of a bad tow truck driver in the 3rd case.

Binging this now, and feeling my Immersion French getting stronger. Just finished the 6th ep, and wow.... That Perfume episode; that LipSync battle should have been two safes; they put everything into that song and more. I hope Big Bertha might be available for the next X vs the World series, since she'll make a splash without a doubt.

Honestly, I don't mind the teen Ninjas competing and doing well. To some extent I'd expect that, since they have the youthful energy and flexibility behind them. They are probably getting a bit too much focus in general, but that's just due to a perfect storm of circumstances. We've gotten a set of strong ninjas coming from the ANWJr circuit, we have the age limit being lowered, and we have COVID restrictions shaking up the format in general. But that said, we NEED these teens/twenty-somes showing up and doing well just to keep the sport going. A lot of the classic ninjas are getting older, and while it shows that they can still compete, they're obviously showing their ages in various ways. Basically, we have a changing of the guard happening. And while it's a bit sad to see some of our old favorites starting to fade away, it's time to start picking new favorites from the new cohort. (Jay Lache Lewis is one that seems to be a strong rising star of the new generation). It'll probably be another season or two for this surge to fade and we get back to a more 'normal' mix of old and new ninjas.

Yeah, "Bidet" was tricky, but it was bad luck that the contestants didn't know the word. "Prude" was another difficult word that (thankfully) Kiki burned. I love that they left that reaction in. Has that ever happened (on camera) in the older series? "Oscar" was so obvious for "Grouch", I'm still shaking my head that they did two different words for it.

Good to know. Running it the next night probably makes sense, especially from a production point of view. Sure the ninjas might tighten up/be sore from Stage 3, but it lets everyone get a days rest and more or less start at the same level of preparedness. And for production it lets them make sure they film the climb at night, and have time to do all the interviews and setup.

So far I think the friends have been completely useless when brought up. But admittedly, the friends tend to come up when they are completely desperate, and it's just bad luck the friend doesn't know the song. (I think the closest we had was the young woman who had her father come up. they both KNEW the road song, but the lyric was deeper in the song and they both blanked on it). Black Velvet was a close one, I thought she got that one wrong as well. As for Cher, I was screaming that he was wrong but sadly he didn't hear. :) I do like that when they have to guess the lyric, it is a full lyric (or two). they don't cut it off in mid line. So if you make your guess and it isn't a complete line, then it's a good strong hint that you messed up somewhere.

Looking at the Stage 3 obstacles, "Chop It Up" is probably going to need a retuning or be removed. It's a concussion waiting to happen; there has to be a better way to do it. The Rope unwinder seems like a good first obstacle. I don't think it knocked anyone out, but it's a different type of obstacle of sorts, and a good warmup. The Eyeglasses challenge seems to be solved after last year. So it will probably be retired as well to make room for a new obstacle. As for Stage 4, it was good that the ninjas were practicing it, but I suspect their training didn't account for doing it hours after running Stage 3. They all hit the wall about 50-60ft up and just couldn't get through it. Doing it in 37seconds was impressive.

TAR isn't above manipulating how teams appear; but I don't think they usually go to extremes. Still some teams have gotten the Angel edit and many teams have gotten the Villain edit through the years. Often times the edits seem to be correct, but other times, it's obvious manipulation to make us cheer/jeer for certain teams. One thing with TAR though, is that they don't have as much slack to make these edits as they go. The film crews are constantly on the move, and the teams rarely have any down time together (on or off camera) during the race. The only time teams tend to interact is when they're at a challenge or on a common transport (ie bus between locations), so that's where most of the drama tends to be cooked up.

I admit I had a similar idea as well (and wasn't sure where to put it). It could be good to follow up the recent All Star All Stars season with a "Ru Paul's No Stars Drag Race" with all the queens who were 1 and done.

Look back a few pages; I posted an article about a new show starting on IMDB TV (the network Judy moved to). Officer Byrd will be the bailiff and it'll be a 3-judge show like Hot Bench with Acker and DiMango as 2 of them. Corriero is staying behind on Hot Bench with 2 new judges in the new season. Here is the article from the end of April: https://deadline.com/2022/04/judy-sheindlin-panel-court-show-tribunal-amazon-freevee-judge-judy-bailiff-petri-hawkins-byrd-patricia-dimango-tanya-acker-ordered-1235011842/

Interestingly, the new season should be weeks away, but I haven't noticed any "New Season!" promos on any of the court shows. Maybe I've missed it, but considering Hot Bench is switching 2/3 of the judges, you would think they'd be promoting that.

This ep didn't drag me as much as the previous ones. The theme felt missing, and I think it was the song choices; I'm less familiar with most of them, so I didn't enjoy them. When Poppy opened, while I knew the song, she didn't seem as energetic with it so I knew it wouldn't be a threepeat, but she was clearly safe. The winners were basically winners by default. Not sure I agree with a shared winner, but whatever. As for the elimination:

Airs August 26

It looked like all 4 Vegas stages are built at once. When they were transitioning from Stage 1 to Stage 2, it looked like Stage 2 was basically behind Stage 1. Matt and Akbar even have a second viewing stage set up for Stage 2. Stage 3 was behind that, and Stage 4 is always up. And I do believe all stages are run as quickly as they can process the ninjas, so Stage 3 and Stage 4 are run deep in the morning after they've been up all night running Stage 2. It does seem that for the Safety Pass Ninjas, they let those ones go early, so they have some recovery time if they need to use the pass. But otherwise, having to run an extra run over everyone else within the tight time period is one of the "Costs" of the safety pass. The pass may let them continue on, but their tanks are that much emptier.

Yeah, Stage 2 is split over 2 episodes. Since the finale is next week, Stage 3 will probably only have a few more finishers; but the fact they have 6? already is well above last year. The blind grab (did you know it's a blind grab?) at the end isnt' as killer as it was last year now that the Ninjas can train for it.

True, but as far as Snatch Game goes, it's as much creating the Snatch-Celebrity Character as it is matching an existing Celebrity. A good Snatch-Queen should have the look planned out and down long before the show comes on. And they should have the quirks for the celebrity planned as well, and be comfortable improvising with those quirks. The real Celebrity is much more than they're going to present, but a Snatch-Queen only has 4-5 question rounds to make an impression and to bounce off of the other Queens, Ru and the contestants. So you don't need a deep character impersonation; you need some quirks to hook off of and run with. So the real Val has a lot of depth and characterization; but Beverly should have focused on "GlowUp Val Garland" and made sure she had the look down as you pointed out; and been Ding Dong!ing almost every round, and been critical of the other queen's makeups and so forth. Go all in on that aspect of their celebrity. In any case, we're well in agreement that this Val Snatch wasn't all that good. :) Someone else (I think) suggested this was better than this Season's Canadian Drag Race Snatch, and I'm not sure. I'd probably say they were a bit better. I think the Aussie queens were on average a bit better, but CDR's Marie Curie was the most memorable of both sets (IMO). Granted Marie Curie didn't have anyone else to play off of so she carried her act solo.

That would probably have been buzzed because it's not a thing. "World War Z's Brad" might have been acceptable, since you're after a thing in that case.

I just watched the new season of GlowUp (since it hit Netflix this week), so I was a bit excited to see someone take a stab at Val. But she really botched the Snatch-Val. Waiting for the end to get the Ding DONG! was probably a mistake; it should have been in the second question period, and then repeated in the final question round. And she should've been more proactive, criticizing the makeup of the other Snatch Queens, Ru and the contestants.

Actually, as we saw on one of the attempts, there does seem to be a way for a Ninja to skip the tetherball part. One of the ninjas (I can't recall who but it was late in the ep) had missed the landing multiple times and run out of momentum. So they had to climb back up, and instead of swinging the tether around again, they tried to jump straight to the landing. And they almost made it. I'm sure a lot of ninjas noticed that and will consider that, maybe for next year if it's still around. I'm sure the course designers noticed it as well so there might be a clause to stop that in the future.