"RuPaul's Drag Race" is Better (and Bitchier) Than Ever

RuPaul's Drag Race is back on Logo (AfterElton.com's parent) and, as usual when it comes to the second season of a break-out hit that no one expected to be a hit, it's exactly the same ... and at the same time "bigger."

The most jarring change is the obviously-improved budget (except when it comes to the grand prize: headlining a Drag Race tour and $25,000?). The production values are much better and the sets and the runway look great.

(Incidentally, it must also be said: RuPaul Charles, the male incarnation, looks like the forty-ish year-old man he is. In drag, he looks at least fifteen years younger. Oh, what a little make-up, lighting, and attitude can do!)

As for the contestants, the show has done another good job of featuring a wide variety of both drag queen "styles" and personality types, although I confess didn't see any totally unique immediate stand-outs, like last year's Nina Flowers and Tammie Brown. Jujubee will surely end up being an audience favorite — she's already mine — while Morgan, Raven, Nicole Paige Brooks, Mystique, Tatianna, and, well, maybe everyone else will apparently be battling it out for the role of "uber-bitch."

Things were sometimes tense enough in the show itself; some of the girls got downright Joan Crawford-in-Mommie-Dearest in the aftershow, RuPaul's Drag Race Untucked.

The first episode's major challenge, "Gone With the Window," was ridiculously clever, asking the contestants to fashion a gown out of curtains a la Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. Or, perhaps more accurately, I should say Carol Burnett in her Carol Burnett Show send-up of GWtW — although the fact that no one did an obvious riff on that classic sketch makes me think I'm getting very old.

"Gone with the Window"

Personally, I've never quite understood why it is that drag queens are judged, in part, on their ability as seamstresses and clothing designers — this ain't Project Runway, even if that's the show that this one is most closely modeled after.

Needless to say, the results of their needle handiwork vary considerably, with Shangela and especially Mystique coming up, um, short (and earning my eternal sympathy, as my personal seamstress ability stops at the "iron-on patch").

Guest judge Kathy Griffin was her usual, hilarious self, especially with her drag queen look-alike Pandora Boxx, and I really hope this is an indication that the celebrity guest judges, always stellar on this show, have more to do and say this year.

There was a hint during the previews that future judges are incorporated into the challenges themselves, the way they are on Project Runway, and this would be a terrific turn of events.

Kathy Griffin look-alike Pandora Boxx

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