RIP Drag Race All Stars: Season 8 might be the death of the spin off as we know it

We know it, we love it – but is All Stars 8 going to be the end of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars seasons as we know it for some time? After the all winners cast of AS7, the line-up of All Stars 8 raised chuckles considering it had a fair few first outs amongst the cast and generally was filled with queens who didn’t even win any challenges. As exciting as this still is for me personally and how iconic I think this season’s going to be, some are theorising the franchise is running out of queens that WoW production even want to invite back for an All Stars. Could this season be the end of Drag Race All Stars as we know it?

‘Enjoy this All Stars – it’s the last one’

One Drag Race fan on TikTok has shared the following theory, and honestly… it all makes a lot of sense.

PhilipSeymourHoffwoman (deeply iconic username, by the way) theorises “This is the last All Stars as we come to know it from seasons like two and three. Meaning, legitimate titans absolutely destroying each other. It’s fun, it’s messy and the franchise has finally unfortunately outgrown it permanently, I think.

@allidoisdryheave

Did Beck just break up with someone at World of Wonder, ‘cause there’s gonna be a sea change🥸 #dragrace #allstars #rupaulsdragrace #dragraceallstars #rupaul #allstars8 #season8

♬ original sound – PhilipSeymourHoffwoman

“Here’s the other thing: This is clearly meant to be the ‘first off season’ that has been rumoured for a while. Darienne wasn’t first off but she has been rumoured for several seasons now. It’s like they’re running out of the people they want to see come back and do this format, whilst also having trouble with getting queens to commit to the current contract.

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“Whilst I do think we should take a lot of what Willam says with a grain of salt, I do think she is right when she says there are not going to be eliminations anymore after All Stars 8. I think the returning queens are now because of the calibre of the franchise of the calibre where they’re no longer down for that – unless World of Wonder sacrifices a lot of control and agrees to a lot of the stuff that would make the queens really happy and probably the production company not too happy.

“So what we’re going to have to wind up doing is to try and find out where a new middle is. It’s not really like we’re missing out on seeing the old format with the new queens, that’s just not the energy of any of the franchise anyways. Like, is Jackie Cox going to Pangina Gottmik? I think we just need to remember seasons like five and All Stars 2 really fondly and accept that they were just the solid days.”

Whilst I personally think this is quite a cynical approach to the franchise, I do think that some correct and interesting points are made. The show needs to make fast changes to keep it all fresh – AS7 worked so well because it was true greats and a new theme that we’d never seen before. I think All Stars 8 will be spectacular – but after that, the future feels ambiguous.

RuPaul’s Drag Race streams exclusively in the UK on the streamer of all things drag, WOW Presents Plus. Subscribe here.

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