With over 12 hours of fashion, fights and fierce drag, season 15 of RuPaul’s Drag Race has solidified itself as a unique installment in the franchise.

The season revved up back on Jan. 6 and it reached its final lap with the finale on April 14. Having such a long airtime is nothing new for Drag Race, but where it struggled was the duration for its episodes.

In the past, a standard drag race episode (with commercials) was 90 minutes. But for over half of season 15, episodes lasted a mere 60 minutes due to the show’s jump from VH1 to MTV.

The premiere was over the course of two episodes that premiered on the same day, so the shortened length wasn’t immediately apparent. However, by episode three the pacing was painfully off. It felt like some queens would disappear for minutes on end until a random confessional would happen and I found myself saying “oh hey I remember you.”

This wasn’t helped by the fact that this season had the largest cast in drag race “herstory” with 16 queens. For the first six or so episodes, many queens got lost in the sparkly shuffle, but luckily for Drag Race they had some stand out personalities that were able to pop with their hour in the spotlight.

The cast is truly where this season shines, with everyone from the first-out to the winner creating memorable moments.  Some queens Irene Dubois gave a sinisterly sarcastic take on drag while other queens like Loosey Laduca provided classic yet elevated performances.

Other stand-outs were the killer stunt performances from Anetra and god herself, Sasha Colby, as well as the hilarious confessionals from Luxx Noir London and Mistress Isabelle Brooks. And if you like things on the less shady side, you could find it in the beautiful stupidity that is Sugar and Spice, who are the first set of biological twins ever to be on the show. 

The range with the cast was unlike any previous season; there was no queen who wasn’t absolutely one of a kind. The palatability of the queens made the eliminations all the more heartbreaking – but the lip syncs definitely softened the blow.

The absolute best part and what makes this season stand out is its lip syncs, some of them reaching as high as 2.5 million views on the official Drag Race YouTube channel. These queens are undoubtedly performers; while some were better than others, no lip sync left me bored.

The star-studded cast with incredible talent really made the shortened episode lengths bearable. The season’s success is a testament to the queen’s charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent. Condragulations season 15, you’ve absolutely earned a spot as one of the best seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race.