Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
If you’re a fan of LEGO, or know some little ones (or big ones) that like to build with the ubiquitous bricks, then LEGO Masters is going to be heaven for you. Will Arnett, who played Batman in the LEGO Movie franchise, is the host, and he brings the proper amount of goofiness to a series where adults build with what’s ostensibly a kid’s toy. But the challenges are not kid’s play, by any means.
LEGO MASTERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Shot of a massive set, with a wall full of LEGO people. Will Arnett intones in his baritone, “What does it take to be a LEGO Master?”
The Gist: Each episode contains a single challenge, played out over 10-15 hours. In the first challenge, the ten teams of two are tasked to build a piece of a LEGO Dream Theme Park, with 15 hours to go from planning to completion. One of the big keys to the project is that one major element has to move. The two judges are Amy Corbett, a LEGO senior design manager who created the popular Friends line, and Jamie Berard, who worked on the Creator Expert and Architecture lines.
The teams seem to consist of people who mostly met online via LEGO builders’ groups; one is two bearded big guys who create a lumberjack-themed land. Another team make an ambitious and large Ferris wheel. A husband-and-wife team take forever to plan their land but settle on a “funny farm” complete with egg-drop ride. A father-son couple create a roller coaster that only looks half-done, and Berard warns them that they need to think things through.
The winner of the round gets a “golden brick,” which can be used to buy immunity during a future round. The bottom two teams are up for elimination.
Our Take: The format of LEGO Masters, based on a British reality competition, is equivalent to the Great British Baking Show, where the contestants (in this case, groups of two) design and work on their projects over a long — but not so long, given the scope — period of time. Along the way, the challenges will be slightly different — week two challenges the teams to make a space-themed project that Arnett will then break in creative ways. There will also be guest judges, as we see clips of Mayim Bialik and Terry Crews hanging out with Arnett and the judges in subsequent episodes.
But for the first week, it’s just Arnett and the judges in what feels like an endurance test during the fifteen hour building period. We would have like to have seen a bit more punchiness from everyone involved, considering the last stages of the build are likely taking place somewhere in the neighborhood of midnight. Sure, Arnett and the judges probably got naps, but the contestants didn’t. We see some of the strain of the time crunch, but most of what we saw seemed more frictionless than what actually took place
Because the judges are LEGO designers and not performers, Arnett has to pick up the entertainment slack, and there are times when he plays his GOB Bluth/Batman persona to the hilt. Hopefully, having the guest judges will help Arnett ease up on the arrogant shtick, despite the fact that he’s genuinely funny at times. What we also want to see more of is the risks that the contestants take just moving the projects from their workstations back to home base. LEGO is inherently unstable, as you or your kids have found out when trying to move a teetering tower. Imagine trying to move these massive and complex structures, some with moving parts. That’s the best kind of tension, if you ask us.
Sex and Skin: It’s LEGO. We don’t want to think of the Sex and Skin possibilities
Parting Shot: At the end of the first competition, Arnett tells the contestants to “hit the bricks!” Get it?
Sleeper Star: We’re happy to see that there’s a fair amount of diversity in the contestant pool. It feels like LEGO building would be the realm of the nerdy white male. But there are a fair number of Black, Latino and other people of color in the group, and plenty of women.
Most Pilot-y Line: When introducing the Golden Brick, Arnett subjects the contestants to an extended bit where a sports car comes in, then he opens the hood and it’s filled with cash, then he lifts the cash to get to the box that contains the brick.
Our Call: STREAM IT. If you’ve seen some amazing LEGO sculptures and wonder who does that sort of thing, LEGO Masters will be a good insight into master builders’ skill set and thought process.
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.
