Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Dragnificent!’ On TLC, Where Four Drag Queens Do Heart-Tugging, ‘Queer Eye’-Style Makeovers

Alkemy X, the production company behind Restaurant Impossible, certainly didn’t reinvent the wheel when they put together the new TLC makeover series Dragnificent! It’s pretty much Queer Eye, except with drag queens. We even see the queens driving to surprise their subject and lots of sincere discussions about the subject’s lives, including body acceptance. So if you’re feeling a lot of deja vu when watching this show, you’re not imagining things. But can the four star drag queens make the familiar format their own?

DRAGNIFICENT!: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An opening montage of the first season of Dragnificent!, where we see four drag queens visiting various women looking for makeovers and a boost in confidence.

The Gist: Dragnificent! is a Queer Eye-style makeover show, only here four well-known drag queens go to someone’s hometown to make them over. We don’t see them in drag all the time; they’re driving to their first subject, NJ-based pro wrestler named Corinne, out of costume. But by the time they show up as she’s filming what she thinks is an audition, Corinne sees four fabulous drag queens in front of her, ready to help her get ready for her wedding.

The four drag queens are no slouches, either: Alexis Michelle, a top-five finisher on RuPaul’s Drag Race, is an expert at hair, makeup and body image; BeBe Zahara Benet, the original Drag Race winner, has an event planning business; Thorgy Thor, who is an expert in music and entertainment; and Jujubee, who is a fashion expert who has regularly participated in RuPaul’s various Drag Race shows.

Corinne has never considered herself to be particularly demure or feminine. She’s put off planning her wedding to fellow wrestler Javi because she just doesn’t feel that she’ll make the kind of bride she’s always envisioned. When she talks about a wedding dress with Jujubee and Alexis, she says she doesn’t want to “look like a refrigerator in lace.” She tries on a bunch of dresses but just doesn’t feel like a bride in any of them, to the point where she goes off into a side room cursing and in tears. But she finally finds the one she wants, one of the simpler dresses in the shop.

After Javi talked to the group about how their engagement was a comedy of errors, including a lost ring, that the drag queens decide to glam Javi up in drag and have him propose to Corinne during one of her wrestling matches. While there, they see how confident Corinne is in her wrestling persona, and want to make sure that they make her that comfortable on her wedding day.

Our Take: Because the format is so familiar, the show will be carried by the personalities of the four drag queens. And there, of course, the group excels: All four of them bring the energy, enthusiasm and caring that you expect to a show like this, but they additionally bring extensive knowledge of how to present themselves to an audience. It also helps that the four of them have equally effusive personalities out of drag; when Corinne sheepishly asks BeBe if the queens can come as themselves to her ceremony, BeBe mockingly expresses surprise, but then warmly says, “Of course!” It’s that self-awareness and sense of humor that will carry this show.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Dragnificent is that the queens will be working with women who have big image problems. One woman we see in the opening montage has a slight disability in her face, another just feels dowdy. “It’s up to us to come in and zhuzzh the flower,” says Alexis Michelle. Corinne is by no means a “refrigerator in lace,” but she feels that way, which is all that matters; the queens do a great job of helping her realize that she can make an elegant and beautiful bride and have a wedding that fits her and Javi’s personalities to a T. And, as will any makeover show of this ilk, those heart-tugging, tear-inducing scenes are going to be “money shot” of Dragnificent! If the scenes are as effective as when the queens (in street clothes for the wedding ceremony) all hug Corinne after she sees herself in hair and makeup for the first time, the show should do just fine.

Sex and Skin: Not that kind of show.

Parting Shot: The queens, now in drag, do a dance routine at the reception, and Javi tells the interviewer that they brought out what he’s thought about Corrine all along. One thing this show doesn’t do that Queer Eye does is the follow-up, where the subject sends a video of how he/she has been keeping up with their suggestions.

Sleeper Star: Thorgy looks as distinctive out of drag as he does in it, with Harry Potter glasses and very long dreadlocks. We’d love to see more of Thorgy in civilian garb.

Most Pilot-y Line: We know for a fact that the wedding took place miles from where Corrine lives (we know because the golf course where it took place is right near where we live), and we have never been fans of producers clipping together three disparate location shoots and making them all look like they’re in the same place.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Dragnificent! isn’t quite as good as Queer Eye — the lower budget it pretty evident — but the drag queens make it a fun, empowering watch.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Dragnificent! On TLC.com