Diehard fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race have started a Change.org petition to bring back 90-minute episodes of the show, following the move from VH1 to MTV. The new season of Drag Race, which airs on Fridays, has been shortened to one hour, followed by The Real Friends of WeHo and then Untucked.
Fans are disappointed with the shorter episodes, stating that the queens have worked too hard to settle for less airtime. Additionally, many viewers are frustrated that they have to watch or wait for The Real Friends of WeHo to conclude in order to watch the following episode of Untucked live on TV. This has led to a petition being created on Change.org, with the title, “Bring back 90-minute episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race and not air The Real Friends of WeHo.” As of this writing, the petition is very close to gathering 20,000 signatures and moving at a quick pace.
The petition reads, “I know this is probably petty, but MTV and WOW Presents, we would like RuPaul’s Drag Race to return to 90-minute episodes. The 90-minute format was unique to any other reality competition show where we actually have context for the content of episodes. Also, we really don’t want The Real Friends of WeHo to air. Given Todrick Hall’s problematic behavior last year on Celebrity Big Brother, it’s irresponsible to give him a platform he doesn’t deserve, and he refuses to take accountability. So we ask politely and aggressively to allow Drag Race to have the 90 minutes fans deserve.”
VH1 started to air 90-minute episodes of Drag Race during season 10. Though the episodes themselves were one hour long, they aired as 90 minutes of content when including the commercial breaks. However, with the move to MTV for Drag Race season 15, episodes have reverted back to being a round one-hour block of television. This means that episodes are about 40 minutes long, plus commercial breaks.
It is likely that the entire 15th season of Drag Race has already been fully edited to fit the one-hour block of programming, so the petition may be a little too late. Additionally, it is very unlikely that MTV will change its programming strategy based on a petition of this kind. However, it is worth noting that the one-hour block of Drag Race will probably hit its sweet spot once the cast of 16 queens is narrowed down to just a few. It seems like a lot of the frustration comes from having such a large cast with less time to showcase them all individually – but the cast will keep getting smaller week by week.
RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 airs Fridays on MTV.
