It's not the live-ness of the finale that's so disastrous. It's a complex cocktail of 1) a week in between the final episode of the season and the finale, usually occupied by a clip show; 2) a fan-vote that the show says will be taken into account by RuPaul, whether you actually believe that or not; and 3) a "live" "finale" that is both pre-taped and not so much a finale as a reunion.

TV shows generally do not take a week off between their penultimate and final episodes, mostly because by that point you've built up a good deal of anticipation, and it's good practice to pay off anticipation in a timely manner. Drag Race could probably get away with the bye week before the finale if not for the deadly combo of the fan vote and "live" finale. Because even though the finale is not strictly speaking live, it is taped after the season has aired. Thus, RuPaul and the show's producers know exactly who the fanbase wants to win, and the fanbase knows they know. Overwhelming fan-favorite Sharon Needles took the crown in season 4, and overwhelming fan-favorite Jinkx Monsoon took the crown in season 5. If you think RuPaul (or her interns) are sitting there counting fan votes on Facebook, you're crazier than Laganja Estranja in the gold bar, but Ru also knows which way the wind is blowing, and she's not about to send her fans home unhappy. Is there a chance Adore Delano, another incredibly well-liked queen, will end up victorious? Perhaps. But odds are that the wildly popular Bianca del Rio will be the third massive fan-fave to take an utterly predictable (if completely well-deserved) win.

In the days before live finales, we had suspense, even if that suspense meant the possibility that a less-popular queen might win. Sure, it's easy to see Bianca as the best now, after three months' worth of a TV show has made the case for her. But there's no telling how the judges' might have viewed things from the bubble of a TV shoot. They might well have gotten caught up in Courtney Act's fishy business during filming, and had the winner been declared then, fans might have legitimate cause to worry that her peppy Aussie perfection might have won the day. Or at least we viewers at home would be left with the reasonable doubt that they might have been. A Courtney win wouldn't be right, but it would be surprising, and it would certainly help the finale to feel less like a foregone conclusion. And who's to say a "bad" winner ruins a season anyway? Tyra Sanchez is probably the least popular winner in Drag Race history, but is anybody complaining that season two wasn't flawless?

The live finale came into being because season three's winner, Raja, was widely spoiled before the finale aired, and the show was worried the same would happen in season four. To help combat spoilers, three separate endings were recorded for the s4 finale, so that not even Sharon Needles knew she won until the show aired. Of course, the result of that particular gambit is that Needles' reaction to winning wasn't even a real reaction to winning. It was the put-on of what a reaction to winning would look like, just in case. (The same three-endings tape was carried out for season five.)