Season 16 – RuPaul's Drag Race

Audience Reviews

View All (3) audience reviews

DeeJay A Same thing year after year, country after country. Put the show to rest. It's so cringy and over done. Come On! Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 12/09/24 Full Review chicken p Really disappointing season, especially following up such a great season like 15. The most redeemable moment of the show was the lip sync Lalaparuza and perhaps the first talent show. Like others have said, the challenges were repetitive for the sake of providing as many design challenges as possible while cutting out the comedy, acting, and improv challenges they usually do. These sort of choices were strategically made from the beginning of the season in order to ultimately donate the crown to Nymphia regardless of the other queens' performances because they knew she only excelled in sewing and bringing expensive runway outfits, and she had huge shortcomings in comedy/acting/improv/hosting/teamwork as demonstrated in the Snatch Game and bathroom makeover challenges in particular where she was unjustly saved from the bottom two. Production likely knew she would attract a large new international audience, so it was made clear throughout the season that they wanted her to win despite Sapphira being an obviously more well-rounded and consistent performer who excelled in all varieties of talents and more closely fit the bill of a queen who deserved to be crowned. Such decisions were also present with other competitors, such as when Mirage was unjustly placed in the bottom in the SNL challenge instead of Mhi'ya, who had a much worse performance and the worst runway of the night by far, because she was a clear production favorite. She was also later saved from elimination unjustly against a frontrunner competitor after delivering a messy lip sync in which she showcased one of the worst reveal attempts ever by removing her wig to reveal her wig cap. The season's shortcomings culminated in a lackluster finale with mediocre performances, the best of which being Sapphira's. The lip sync for the crown was rather disappointing, especially, again, following up the season 15 lip sync for the crown which was the best one yet. Nymphia and Sapphira both seemed frantic and neither of them delivered an enamoring or strong performance. Nymphia performed a couple stunts we've certainly seen before, such as the wall handstand into a split that she copied off of Brooklyn Heights from the Bootylicious lip sync in the season 11 finale. Although Nymphia had an interesting outfit/reveal idea, it didn't fit the song AT ALL and felt extremely out of place. However, it was a smart move on her choice because it reinforced the very reason production wanted to give her the crown in the first place: because she was attracting and representing a new and larger international crowd. While the notion of providing representation is of course necessary and a cornerstone of the show, it did not make a great enough case to crown Nymphia in light of her shortcomings throughout the show that were overshadowed by Sapphira's consistently stronger delivery in the challenges. This was the first season of the US show that the wrong queen was crowned, and unfortunately it was made blatantly obvious that the show is turning into a popularity contest rather than a competition of varied talents as it has been for years. That being said, this season overall was very disappointing and the narrative being pushed by production to favor Nymphia (and Mhi'ya) throughout the season felt very forced and ultimately led to an expectable conclusion. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/25/25 Full Review Martin F It was a pretty entertaining season with a lot of shady exchanges among the competitors. Since the challenges now tend to be a little repetitive it was refreshing to have a season with that many confrontations and snarky comments. The lip synch contest between all the eliminated contestants was very intense and one of the best episode of the whole show. A little disappointed with the finale, the winner feels right but I really missed the theater set up with all the celebrities and past contestant among the spectators. This time it was in a plain studio and felt too small-scale for what we are using to have. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 04/20/24 Full Review Read all reviews

RuPaul's Drag Race — Season 16

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW