HEADER BY YOSEF PHELAN

For a long time, achieving world peace seemed more feasible than a British version of RuPaul’s Drag Race ever getting off the ground.

Now look where we are, babes: Drag Race UK has been streamed over 67 million times on BBC iPlayer, the second season of UK vs the World is imminent (!) and the series has been credited with expanding the franchise into a plethora of territories such as France, Philippines and Mexico. At this point, we wouldn’t be bloody surprised to hear that The White Bitch has been announced as the host of Drag Race Narnia. It’s everywhere, basically.

While we patiently wait for the next season of UK vs the World, we’ve ranked all six seasons of Drag Race UK so far.

6. UK vs the World season 1

Most iconic moment: Pangina’s elimination

The first-ever international version of Drag Race was seriously unhinged. From Jimbo’s introduction of Casper the Baloney Ghost to Janey Jacké’s berserk arm choreography in the Vengaboys lip-sync, as well as Baga Chipz’s Oscar-worthy impersonation of Kathy Bates, the six-episode first season boasted a plethora of viral moments and resulted in many heated debates online. It will go down in the herstory books for eliminating the two strongest queens of the season back-to-back with Jimbo and Pangina Heals; prompting fans to question whether “current All Star rules” should be scrapped entirely if the strongest talent aren’t going to reach the final. Once the two aforementioned stars left the series, it felt – and this is no shade to the finalists – like a non-event. Controversies aside, witnessing some of the most legendary Glamazon Warriors from all corners of the franchise duke it for ‘Queen of the Mothertucking World’ felt like the queer equivalent of Avengers: Endgame. Didn’t quite stick the landing, but whatever.

5. Season 4

Most iconic moment: Baby’s departure

From the slayage of the inaugural ‘Yas-tonbury Festival’ to Dakota entering the werkroom as the British spin-off’s first trans female contestant and, of course, RuPaul missing her first-ever panelling sesh due to unforeseen circumstances, season four was…. memorable, let’s say that. The legendary Danny Beard blazed a trail for more alternative forms of drag when she became the first bearded queen on a season of Drag Race hosted by RuPaul (and the first winner), while Baby received praise for shining a light on mental health with her powerful exit. Season four also consists of one of the most diverse top four’s ever with Jonbers Blonde representing fashion (and “sex worker pigeons” around the world), Black Peppa with performance, Cheddar Gorgeous with alternative/political drag and Danny with comedy/beards. It was a great season, although it suffered ever-so-slightly as a result of some confusing judging choices (their criteria for the makeover challenge changes every season) and its predictability (Danny and Cheddar were always going to be top two).