Trip

And now it's time to play our favorite game, Predict the Mole Based on Nothing But the Opening Credits! I'm gonna say ... Sanne.

And the kandidaten have been revealed! You can see 'em in unsubtitled YouTube clips. I do wish you'd consider another title for this thread, though.

OMG OMG OMG *breaks out Homer-Simpson-style pennant reading "Sarah"*

Now that Sarah is only two away from a victory, I'm not sure if I've ever wanted anything this much.

I watched this in a room of maybe 30 gay men, and not ONE laughed a single time during the Roxxxy/Phi Phi performance, whereas the whole room was dying during the other two. The observation was made that RuPaul was laughing at Phi Phi far more than that performance deserved, so we knew the fix was in. Between the push to get Phi Phi in the top 2 no matter what, and apparently to put Katya on the bottom again despite clearly not deserving it, the producer manipulation seemed really blatant this time. Still, the final scene with the mirror? AWESOME.

I mean, yes, as everyone says, Di is a "you're screwed" character to be assigned. Most of the other characters had easy comedy tags -- let them eat cake! supposedly screwed horses! -- while Di has, uh, getting divorced? On top of which that character was given NO choreography, compared to the others, and lyrics with no gags in them. I thought Roxxxy did far worse, since she was actually given gags and choreography and did nothing with them, in her usual "can't perform her way out of a paper bag" way.

Calling it now: the Ryan Gosling lookalike with commitment issues will make a late-season return, having learned some personal hoo-ha about what's really important, and it will come down to David vs DahVEED. This was just the show's way of not featuring the same guy for the trillion more episodes we have remaining, which would have made the final episode a total anticlimax.

Not just you, Dave. That aardvark was the best part of the Pink Panther.

I'm getting really frustrated that Belgium has completed their revival of De Mol and *nobody* has subbed it into English yet. From what I've read online, it was a really good season. I'm also really eager to get those other WIDM seasons in English, but it would be tacky to push the usual subtitler, given how much work she already does for us for free.

As I said on an EHG Mini, I wanted Carrie and Big to end up together (and never breed) just to get both of those horrible people out of the dating pool forever.

This was my first ever episode of the show, and it was really refreshing. One thing I loved was that after "Ready, set, bake!" there was no mad rush toward a pantry, or fighting with other chefs over ingredients, or whatever sorts of other things you see at that point on US cooking shows. No, they just ... start ambling over toward their bowls and mixers.

Absolutely my only regret is that we didn't hear Audra go for the high note on "Seasons of Love".

Don't recall that specific episode offhand (though I'm sure I watched it at the time), but in general, Rebecca Howe is one of my least favorite TV characters ever. Partly it's the terrible way she's written, partly it's that Kirstie Alley isn't much of an actress.

I was discussing this show at a pool party yesterday (what are the odds?? ... oh, pretty good, actually) and I heard a fascinating tidbit that I haven't confirmed yet, because I really want it to be true and don't want to know if it isn't: Dixie hated doing those liberal rants and eventually had it put into her contract that every time she had to deliver one, in return, she was given a singing scene.

Sticking to seasons 5-8, 12 contestants, no winners: I made a long list, winnowed it down ... and it turned out I had exactly 3 from each of those seasons. Season 5: Alaska, Detox, Alyssa Edwards. (Alternates: Ivy Winters, Coco Montrese, and Roxxxy Andrews.) Season 6: BenDeLa Creme, Adore Delano, Milk. (Alternates: Darienne Lake, Courtney Act.) Season 7: Katya, Ginger Minj, Trixie Mattel. (Alternate: Max.) Season 8: Acid Betty, Kim Chi, Naomi Smalls. (This assumes that Bob wins; if there's an upset, put him in the list. Alternates: Robbie Turner, Chi Chi DeVayne, Thorgy Thor.)

"A Faith Evans song no one has ever heard of" ?!?!? I just ... but ... what the ... I mean ... dude. It's "Mesmerize" for God's sake. It is AWESOMENESS. Live it, learn it, love it.

I've now given this topic the serious research and consideration it deserves, and I've come up with my own personal Top 10 Guys of the Subtitled Seasons of WIDM. I encourage you to Google Image the full names to get a sense of what they looked like on the show and what they look like now (I admit that the latter did change my list a bit, which may not be fair, but it's my list dammit). Apologies to seasons 5 (whose hottest guy was probably Sander) and 13 (Daniel or Tim, I guess), but your casts just weren't hot enough to make my personal cut. 10. Dennis Storm (season 9). The 10th place spot was hotly contested (so to speak) and I'm not 100% sure I've chosen correctly over Jan-Willem (14) or a few others, but he's clearly a good-lookin' guy. 9. William Spaaig (season 12). Cute young little thing. 8. Pieter Derks (season 15). This adorably geeky little brainiac lasted all of one episode. I was very sad to see the hottest guy from the cast (sorry, Viktor Brand) disappear so soon. 7. Jan Kooijman (season 11). Don't remember him on the show that much offhand, but I mean, LOOK at those Google Images. Whoof. 6. Maarten van der Weijden (season 12). Tall, lanky, and those eyes! As stellavision once said on these forums, "I'd climb that tree". The top 5 are a clear step ahead of everyone else, for me. 5. Tim Akkerman (season 10). Andy Roddick lookalike -- what more needs to be said as justification? 4. Remy van Kesteren (season 16). I didn't think anyone from 16 would make the list, and then I saw the picture of Remy clean-shaven (see earlier post in this thread) and *instantly* he vaulted into my top 5. As the reunion episode made clear, he cleans up very nicely. 3. Art Rooijakkers (season 11, host 12-16). About as objectively good-looking as it's possible to be. Hard to imagine anyone looking at Art and going "nope, that guy is just not attractive". My top 2 picks are there because they strike something in me personally, but I can understand them not appealing to everyone; Art is universal. 2. Freek Bartels (season 14). As I say, I know he's not everyone's taste, but YOWZA do I find him hot. And formerly half of one of the hottest couples in the history of the world, the other half of which was ... 1. PATRICK MARTENS (season 8). I mean. This guy looks good no matter what: long hair, short hair, shaved head; clean-shaven, stubbly, facial hair; dressed up in a tux, dressed casually ... this guy is just it. And if you have any questions about the hotness of the Patrick/Freek pairing, let me just leave you with this image: http://www.show.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ANP-22245753-e1373384863818.jpg

Chad lives in LA as well.

I want to know what happened with Bianca. I've seen photos of that shoot that consisted of RuPaul will all eight winners, INCLUDING Bianca, so perhaps the shoot ran long and she couldn't stay for the part with the contestants?

Two questions I still have that the episode didn't answer, and if anyone finds out, please let me know: 1. Did Annemieke find Klaas's portrait on the money? I thought that might have been the case when she left the money behind in her hotel room so that Tim couldn't get his hands on it --if I had info like that, I would make damn sure that no one else got access to it. 2. What the hell happened in that challenge where people were biking to find answers to the trivia questions that Art was asking Taeke? I had thought Taeke was deliberately moling by stealing envelopes, exactly as one of the kandidaten suggested, but on this episode Taeke suggested that when he screwed up, it wasn't deliberate. I'd love to know who moled that challenge and how, because it sure seemed suspicious that so many envelopes got overlooked.

So, yeah. No shock there -- had the Mole and the winner both correct. As for the season as a whole -- it was good. Not among the very best seasons, but (a) Art is still the best host they've had; (b) the cast was strong -- lots of fun personalities. So those partly make up for a fair number of not-great challenges. And even a mediocre WIDM is still far better than any US reality show, so I'll eagerly await season 17.

I agree on both counts. The photography challenge felt like the two-rooms theater challenge where the parameters just weren't explained well to us (and maybe not to the contestants). In the challenge about walking unseen to Art, I could have sworn Art said that Klaas had to walk there without stopping, but it seeemed like there were a number of places where the others said "Klaas, stop!" and he did.

As I told someone else, I feel proud that I recognized his latent hotness on the show despite that terrible facial hair doing its best to hide it.

Remy looks so, so, so, SO much better without facial hair. Take a gander: http://static.glamour.nl/thumbnails/genjPhotoPicture/detail/97/62/05/remy-van-kesteren-56297.jpg

I'm rewatching this season now (after my weekly viewing party for season 16, we're watching an episode of 13, since none of the others have seen that one). I'd forgotten how enjoyable I found it, and that's largely because I enjoy the cast so much. Everyone is an interesting character: Pauline, Daniel, Zarayda, Tim, Tania... it's just a pleasure to watch them interact and play the games. (And, yes, the opera house is an awesome scene.)