Lego Masters (USA) - General Discussion

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Pits enthusiasts in a competition that starts with a single Lego brick and infinite possibilities and concludes with mind-blowing builds that will surely both inspire legions of loyal Lego followers and capture the imagination of new fans.

Hosted by Will Arnett

Premieres February 5.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Check out the set of Lego Masters!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Promo:

 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Will Arnett explains the show:

Tour of the set:

Meet the teams:

Behind the scenes:

 

[xfuse]

I hope this show is as good as the Australian version. 

[Angeleyes]

The lady with the big hair and over-exaggerated expressions is annoying. It reminds me of a Kristen Wiig character. 
 

 

[mtlchick]

Other than the Ozarks who bugged from the start, I liked this a lot. My mind boggled as the stuff they managed to build and even when the moving parts didn’t work, they’re way smarter than me when it comes to this.  

[xfuse]

This is very much like the Aussie version. It even looks like they have some of the same challenges. The one next week is from the Aussie show. So far i'm happy with it but I hope some of the challenges are different. I would like to be different enough that it doesn't feel like i'm watching a copy of something I've already seen.

[Richness]

I want to really like this show, but I absolutely despise Will Arnett and his entire shtick. I admit some of it could be considered funny, but most of it just annoysme. I will fast forward through this in future episodes, but I had to endure every bit of it tonight. Torrential downpours in my area were causing DirecTV signal loss, so I watched it live Over The Air to ensure I didn't miss anything.

 

I wanted more close-up camera work examining the finished designs in detail, and less awkward/missed high-fives. While I really enjoyed the animated CGI segments, just drop them entirely if you can't afford to do that for all of the contestants. I also wanted to see more commentary from the judges.

 

Speaking of which, I liked the lumberjacks the most, so I was heartbroken that their amazing rollercoaster didn't work. They're my pick for winning it all. The young guys that won the Golden Brick are talented, but they come across as obnoxious frat douchebros. The newlyweds are cute and decently talented, but I really didn't need the staged/scripted make out session, especially just to set up a "funny" Arnett moment.

 

I definitely agreed with the judges for the bottom two. However, I would have been fine if big hair lady joined them. I'd have more sympathy for her put-upon teammate, but that lady doesn't speak up enough for herself. The male princess just gets on my nerves. I'm all for him expressing himself as he wants, but the hair and overall look (pun intended) annoy me. The same usually happened with the blue haired "goths" on Face Off.

 

When the son nearly broke into tears earlier in the show, I was moved. When he did it during the judging, I just wanted to barf. I'm about ready to implement a No Crying Rule for reality competition shows. If you cry, you get booted immediately. However, I do admire and appreciate the closeness between the father and son.

 

Even with it's annoying aspects, I'm in it for the long haul. I really enjoy seeing their amazing creations. Hopefully, the ratings will justify their primo primetime spot during a regular season as opposed to a summer series.

[Supagirl]

1 hour ago, Angeleyes said:

The lady with the big hair and over-exaggerated expressions is annoying. It reminds me of a Kristen Wiig character. 
 

 

OMG I love her. I need gifs of her mugging to punctuate my every thought.

I love the beardy guys. Timber Town was the perfect theme park idea for them. I was sad when it didn’t work. Quite a few didn’t work, actually. Nestor & Dad are exhausting. The newlyweds have the potential to get annoying. The team that didn’t work well together are not going to get far unless they sort it out.  Their snippiness with each other makes me uncomfortable. I feel like I didn’t get a chance to know anything about the others...there were some brothers...there was another team of older white guys I don’t even think we got their names.

Definitely not everyone is on the same level, here.

[mertensia]

I loved the one douchebro"I'm here to play with Legos! " Because yeah. How could you not?

I also liked that they have everyone a second chance.

Guy with the long hair and barrette/hair clip looks like he has a nasty temper. They can go.

I want that entire table. All of it.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

On a lot of competitive reality shows, I've wished that they wouldn't do an elimination after the first challenge so I'm glad that they ended up keeping everyone. I think between nerves and not knowing what to expect, it's understandable for people to flub the first challenge (regardless of what show it is and what skill they're using).

I could not believe that the newlyweds spent THREE HOURS talking and planning before they went to get any bricks. I'm all for planning ahead but damn. I really thought they might not finish. I was equally surprised that the duck ladies changed their entire idea halfway through the challenge and still had something to show.

I think if the beard bros hadn't had that hiccup with the elevator, they would have won. It's always sad to see when something that worked perfectly during the build malfunctions during judging.

When the contestants had to move their creations to the judging table, I thought it served a practical purpose. I remember on a show I watched where the contestants made wedding cakes, they had to move them from their kitchen area to the judging area because in real life, they would have to transport the cake (well, and the potential drama of a cake disaster that you know the producers were hoping for). I thought that's why the Lego teams had to move their stuff. But then I saw that they were on wheeled tables so what was the point of making them move from one room to the adjacent room? Lame.

5 hours ago, Richness said:

I wanted more close-up camera work examining the finished designs in detail, and less awkward/missed high-fives. While I really enjoyed the animated CGI segments, just drop them entirely if you can't afford to do that for all of the contestants. I also wanted to see more commentary from the judges.

Yes to all of this. The show is an hour so figure out a way to edit so that we can see the final builds in more detail and hear the judges' comments. There were a few times where I felt like we got five seconds of their actual creation and one generic comment from the judges and that was it. These people just spent FIFTEEN HOURS building these things so the least you could do is let us see it all!

7 hours ago, xfuse said:

This is very much like the Aussie version. It even looks like they have some of the same challenges. The one next week is from the Aussie show. So far i'm happy with it but I hope some of the challenges are different. I would like to be different enough that it doesn't feel like i'm watching a copy of something I've already seen.

The smash challenge was done on the original British version of Lego Masters, but I think instead of having multiple ways of destroying/smashing their creations, they just dropped them all from the second floor. I don't mind if they repeat some of the challenges because what the contestants create will be different. They had some good challenges on the UK version that I wouldn't mind seeing again. In one, they had to build a chair that would hold the weight of the host sitting on it (I think that was the very first challenge of the first season). Another one I remember was they had to build some kind of bridge that a weighted remote control car would drive over.

[xfuse]

26 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Another one I remember was they had to build some kind of bridge that a weighted remote control car would drive over.

That was my favourite build from the Aussie show. I think they are building bridges on this one too. I don't mind repeating that one but I don't want them to repeat them all. 

I have seen both Lego Masters UK and Lego Masters Australia. I just like the Australia one more. I think just like on the Australia show some of the teams are put together by the producers. The bros and the princess teams seem like they were put together. 

[suebee12]

I really enjoyed this show and can't wait for my 10 year old grandson to see it! I know he doesn't have over 3 million legos but it sure seems like he does! He usually built the set from the directions but I truly think he had more fun when he would sit down and design his own!!

Am I the only one who wonders if they work straight through the 15 hours? I am amazed at some of the cake shows where they are given 5-6 hours, but 15? And it seems unfair if you need a bathroom or snack break, you have to use your building time. Does anyone know?

[Taeolas]

Bathroom and Snack times are probably part of your 15 hour build time, since they'll assume you'll still be thinking/plotting/planning while away. (And often time, a break away from the project is valuable to get some distance and work out a problem).

Talking head interviews are usually 'free' time from what I understand; everyone gets X-minutes for the talking head moments so the interruptions are fair to everyone, since the talking head moments are production imposed interruptions instead of interruptions you want to do. 

 

As for rolling the projects into the other room; it is still movement across a messy set, which can cause problems. For this project, part of the challenge was to make sure Dreamland fits back together in the end, so the movement is important there, even if they are just rolling tables. Sure rolling the tables isn't as dangerous as moving a 6ft tall cake to the judging stand, but it's ultimately the same sort of thing. 

 

The teams, some are bugging me a bit, but they all do seem to have the spirit. Still it feels like there's more stuntcasting here than usual. As for the final projects, the Top 2 were pretty obvious; Space Land and  Timber Land were the top 2 despite the broken roller coaster. The bottom 2 were valid choices, but as mentionned above, I'm glad they didn't have a first round elimination. With the Golden Brick, there were stakes for this round so it wasn't worthless; but with a NEL, everyone has a chance to get a feel for the competition.

 

Looking forward to next week. 🙂

[abc123]

Had fun watching this a day late on DVD with 2 of my LEGO obsessed boys.
 

I wish it were on an hour earlier...seems like they’re missing out on a lot of their key demographic based on weeknight bedtimes. 

Overall wearing snippy guy can take a seat, and big hair lady can tone down the mugging for the camera. 
 

Agree on wanting to see more of the detail. Looking forward to more episodes!

[mlp]

I loathe the host and some of the contestants but, overall, I enjoyed seeing them make things I wouldn't know how to begin.  I hope the newlyweds and the guy with a flower in his hair are early outs.  Bleccch.

Last fall my daughter and I went to an exhibit featuring the works of a Lego artist named Nathan Sawaya.  He doesn't do movement as much as reproducing figures and famous works of art but I was impressed by what could be created with little Lego bricks.  Some of his works were quite astonishing.

 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

17 hours ago, suebee12 said:

Am I the only one who wonders if they work straight through the 15 hours? I am amazed at some of the cake shows where they are given 5-6 hours, but 15? And it seems unfair if you need a bathroom or snack break, you have to use your building time. Does anyone know?

I am not familiar with the industry rules and regulations for adults when they're filming reality tv. Regular (scripted) tv shows have rules about requiring meal breaks every X number of hours but reality tv is considered a different category so I'm guessing they have different rules (if any). I know that when reality tv started getting really big in the 00s, there weren't any regulations and there were issues raised specifically because some shows like American Idol had minors and there weren't any of the usual child labor laws in place to require meal breaks, have them attend school, limit the number of hours they're on camera, etc. I don't know what ever came of those questions being posed though or if they created regulations that only apply to minors.

On a related note, I'm glad this version of the show only has adults. The UK version allowed kids and it seemed unfair to have 10 years competing against adults with engineering backgrounds. After S2, they said they were going to do a separate series with just kids.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Every week, Jamie and Amy will be doing a shot video called brick tips where they go backstage, give tips, and talk about the episode.

 

Edited February 7, 2020 by ElectricBoogaloo

[DaphneCat]

New to this show, never seen the other versions.  I'm hoping someone knows the answer to this.  Is there some sort of rule that says once they move their creation in to the other room they can no longer make adjustments?  They had 10 minutes to move their tables.  Wouldn't it have made more sense to move it as soon as possible so you would still have time to do a final test or fix anything that fell over/came loose?  Obviously, something got jostled out of place when the timber guys moved their creation.  I kept thinking if they had saved a few minutes they could have possibly fixed what went wrong before the judging.  I really think they would have won if they had done so.  

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Two Lego masters (they work for Lego) talk about the first episode of Lego Masters and which builds impressed them the most:

 

[xfuse]

4 hours ago, DaphneCat said:

Is there some sort of rule that says once they move their creation in to the other room they can no longer make adjustments? 

Yes they can still make adjustments/work after it gets moved. If I remember correctly the timber guys were the last ones to move their table and they ran into/over bricks on their way their. They also had to wait to for someone to get out of the way to put their table in. 

[blackwing]

I enjoyed this show and the finished builds but I agree with others that I don’t understand why there was such discrepancy in airtime for some teams.  Some teams got animated intros of their park, others got to explain in detail, while others barely got any time at all.  I think there were two teams of black men?  One had a cop, the other got like 20 seconds airtime in the final judging?

The camera work was terrible, I found myself pausing the screen to try and see more of each park.  I wanted to explore the details more. 
 

I don’t care for big hair lady or the stubborn son or especially the nasty guy who was terrible to his partner.  Telling her she has to figure out the mechanical aspect and then being completely unsupportive.  I hope they go home just for her sake.  

[Taeolas]

Early on in these competition shows, when you have umpteen million contestants, it's inevitable that some of them will get the short shrift when it comes to showing off their final projects. 

Another factor is that this is the first episode, so on top of the time for the project, you have to have time to introduce everyone. And since it's the first ep of the series (for US audiences) the concept also has to be introduced as well. 

This should probably have been a 90 minute or 2 hour episode to fit everything in. 

In this case, I suspect that some of the projects didn't lend themselves well to good angles for adding an animation overlay. Or because they were middle ground they just didn't get the focus that the best and worst got. 

As the competition goes on and the number of teams decreases, there's more time to spend on each project going forward.

[greyhorse]

Just caught up with the first show.

I'm fascinated that people can come up with ideas and actually put the bricks together to make it happen.  I guess in doing Lego (not Legos, as we learned) with my son, it's just a given that there are instructions to put the pieces together.  Obviously somebody created that design, for some reason it just never dawned on me that there was an actual job as a Lego brickmaster or whatever the proper term is.  I'd be lost without the instructions.  To see these guys make something awesome without any instructions at all is simply amazing.

Disappointed for the lumberjacks, obviously something must have moved when they shifted the table to the judging area?  Given that each build had a moving part, wouldn't it have been prudent to move your design to the judging area early so you could test it?  Why wait to the last 10 seconds?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

S1.E2: Space Smash

Quote

Each duo must create a space-themed build; the creations must impress the judges when they are smashed in slow motion; Mayim Bialik guest judges.

Original air date: 2/12/20

[GaT]

I started watching this episode, but found Will Arnett annoying, & when they brought on Mayim Bialik (does she have something to do with Legos?) on to tell how they were going to be judged on how their creations looked when smashed, I decided it was just too stupid to watch, so I deleted it & cancelled future recordings. If this show was on a night when I didn't really have anything to watch, I might keep recording it & FF through the stupid parts, but I have a bunch of other shows recording on Wednesday & don't want to waste my time.

[mertensia]

Oh, man, Sam is just nasty. He seriously looked like he was going to hit Jessica. I'm glad they showed Will going over to shut his attitude the fuck down.

I don't even care about unicorns and yet I want a unicorn spaceship.

[Taeolas]

I'm fine with the bottom two, but I do feel the other team should have gone home due to incompatibility reasons. Ugh, that wasn't nice to watch. Despite PennyArcade's take on her, I'd sooner have the Big Hair team than that pair of incompatible builders. 

The golden brick team rightfully had a brush with elimination. I have no problem with their Crescent Moon station design, but they should've accounted for their destruction method. A Crescent Moon station would have been great for the gravity drop, maybe even with the Spaceball bat. But if you have an explosive method, you need a contained environment to give the boom the biggest pop. 

 

Despite what I said earlier, I now believe they are filming over 2 days with an unseen rest break in between. Even with the shorter build time this time makes sense since they would need time to set up the boom and otherwise prepare for destruction. That would also explain why the guest star was only around for half of the build; for whatever reasons she couldn't be around for the second day of filming so had to be written out so to speak. 

[roughing it]

I find The Bickersons abhorrent and wish they had been booted.  No, wait, I wish the female partner had just walked away during his snit and quit right then and there.  I would have.

I'm not going to miss Big Blonde Hair and her pal though.  Every close up of BBH, she was mugging for the camera.  So when the camera pulled back and you saw the entire group, I watched her specifically, and she was showing all of her "expressions" the entire time, hoping she'd be on camera.  Wonder what other reality show she was auditioning for.  Ugh, glad she's gone.

[ProfCrash]

I want the Male Bickerson to go. The Female is nice enough. I suspect he is the Lego artist on the team and they really wanted him. His sculptures are good and he is certainly unique. We know that the two have not worked together before and her dog park looked like something I could build.

I am fine with the team that went home, they did not work well together and their piece fell apart.

But that alien and Legor were just awesome. And the planet With the melting core? Amazing.

I could deal with less Will and more focus on the build. 

[Chit Chat]

18 hours ago, GaT said:

I decided it was just too stupid to watch, so I deleted it & cancelled future recordings.

Yeah, I thought the premise of smashing their creations was rather dumb.  I'm with the contestant who cringed when he learned that their finished product would be blown to smithereens.  I'll give it another week and see if it gets better.  I did like the first episode though.  I don't need Will to keep trying to recreate his Lego Batman role either. 

23 minutes ago, ProfCrash said:

I want the Male Bickerson to go. The Female is nice enough.

He definitely needs an attitude adjustment.  It did appear that she was doing nothing, but you can't be yelling at someone and insulting them that way, even if you do feel like you're under soooo much pressure in a Lego building contest.  That's what I found to be ridiculous.  You're in a Lego building contest, you're not racing to save the world.  Sheesh!  I'd hate to see some of these people in actual high-pressure jobs/situations.  

[mlp]

I guess I didn't really understand the premise or why someone would want to invest all that time and effort into something that was going to be destroyed shortly afterwards.  Most of the contestants seemed to enjoy it though.  All the explosions looked pretty much the same to me.

I've never seen Will Arnett  before and I hope I never see him again.  He's obnoxious.  

I was happy to see the Phyllis Diller wanna be leave but I wish the creep with the flower in his hair had gone with her.  He was actually correct about a lot of what he was saying but his manner is totally off-putting and he's hard to look at to boot.

I wonder how long it took to film all the destruction.  It was obvious that the set was cleaned up between teams.  The teams must have had to disperse and reconvene multiple times and wait around in between.  That must have been a long day.

[ProfCrash]

I think that he is simply hard to work with which is why they found someone with little to no LEGO experience to be his teammate. And he has no experience with the mechanical bits of LEGO. And I don't think that he is so good that we have to deal with his BS drama.

I do like the Cops and the brothers. The Father/Son team from Puerto Rico are cool.

The Gold Brick winners are just hard to peg. They are clearly good with LEGO but seem to be kind of Fratty. They knew they had to play up the explosion because they knew it sucked. I wanted them in the bottom two just because their response was so poorly acted. Watching the faces of the other competitors was great.

The married team makes some great stuff but there is a bit of a Stepford vibe there that makes me squeamish. I don't know how to explain it but the conservative dress, the hand holding, the "I'm showing her how to do this". I don't think that they are all that Stepford but the vibe is just weird. Then again, I wear jeans and T-Shirts to work when I am suppose to wear business casual because why the hell would I work in uncomfortable clothes? Why would I Lego in a suit and a dress?

I get that Production probably has a lot to say about their clothes but how many people are building Lego in their Sunday best or professional clothes?

I guess I want more focus on the LEGO and how they are building and access to all of those bricks....

[ElectricBoogaloo]

1 hour ago, ProfCrash said:

Why would I Lego in a suit and a dress?

I thought the same thing when I watched the first episode. Maybe I'm a lazy slob, but I had a job where the dress code was business professional and I would never want to spend 15 hours building Lego while wearing those clothes.

[Catfi9ht]

On 2/13/2020 at 7:08 AM, Taeolas said:

PennyArcade's take on her

I stopped reading PA years ago, but that exactly sums up my feelings about her. I really hate how obnoxious reality tv (and people who audition for reality tv) can be sometimes. 

On 2/13/2020 at 7:08 AM, Taeolas said:

Despite what I said earlier, I now believe they are filming over 2 days with an unseen rest break in between. Even with the shorter build time this time makes sense since they would need time to set up the boom and otherwise prepare for destruction. That would also explain why the guest star was only around for half of the build; for whatever reasons she couldn't be around for the second day of filming so had to be written out so to speak. 

I was doing the math in my head and all it made me do was feel bad for the crew. With the prep time for setup and tear-down, these days have to be really long for them.

I really, really, really hate the padding and editing in this show. The episode is so front-loaded with Will Arnett's shenanigans that they have to crash through showing the teams' end results. What was the point of the bullhorn stunt in the second episode? All that did was take time away from showing, you know, the Legos, which I thought was the point of the show. I was hoping this show would be more like Face Off, which was a job audition disguised as a reality show. This show is more like a bad YouTube channel with obnoxious people vying for more subscribers. I'm really disappointed.

I will say kudos to the lady who was being brown-beaten by her partner. She handled it with such grace and respect (assuming there wasn't creative editing, of course).

[Dewey Decimate]

UO: I find Will Arnett charming and sarcastically funny, even (dare I say) hot, so I actually gave this show a chance due to his hosting! I immediately think of his deep voice-off competition with Jack Donnaghy or his chipped-tooth whistle while douchily riding on a Segway and can't help but crack up.

Not to say I didn't grow up playing with Lego(s - back in the 80s I guess everyone I played with were all doofuses for pluralizing the name). My mom actually bought two of those large metal mechanics' cases with dozens of tiny plastic drawers and labelled every single one with a lovely illustration of each different Lego piece by size and color. And I actually put every one back in its place when my brother and I were done playing. (I can't imagine why I have control/organization issues as an adult.)

Enjoying the show as some light entertainment. The son-dad team are very sweet but they really need to step up their color game - everything of theirs seems like a mish-mash with no distinct color story. Totally identified with the brother who kept cringing at the idea of destroying their creations. The unicorn spaceship was cute, but damn if its horn didn't look like a dog penis. (Apologies for that image.) Speaking of wieners, frat boys are talented, but I get a distasteful vibe from the muscly one. Cheering the non-existent magnificence of the crummiest destruction sequence of all? Gah, I get enough fake news from a white guy in the real world. Buh-bye ridiculously coiffed woman - did she seriously pull down the safety goggles to dramatically look "over" them during the explosions? Wow, camera-aware much? Still, not as bad as the rage-a-holic in glittery peacenik's clothing. What an asshole supreme, with such a ludicrously self-aware and carefully curated look. And on a shallow note, I really don't need to see a hairy dude's armpits and cleavage when I'm eating dinner.

A fun, puffy show, though - reminds me a little of Making It (even ignoring the NBC and former relationship connections).

[Lovecat]

All I took from this episode is gratitude that I’m not the person who had to clean up, dismantle, sort, and put away all of the pieces after the builds were destroyed!

I do have to wave a little flag for Nestor and Manny, though—they’re from my hometown!

[Richness]

Will Arnett got on my nerves in the first episode, but he's nothing but annoying in the second episode. I suspect I'll be crafting a voodoo doll of him during the next episode, and moving on to death threats by the fourth. *exhales slowly* Sorry. Suffice to say, my dislike for him is right up there will Will Ferrell. 

 

Glad Big Hair is gone because I couldn't take another facial expression more extreme than a caricature. While I don't want to see her or anyone hurt, I probably would have gotten schadenfreude if a flying Lego piece had hit her in the eye when she looked out over the safety glasses. Plus, if you're going to be standing and running all day, wear some sensible shoes to begin with.

 

Frat bros are talented, but still not very likable. And my opinion of the two brothers(?) is quickly dwindling due the smack talk toward the other contestants. Even though it's done light-heartedly and jokenly, I still don't like it. Apparently, the bickersons are going to be this show's cockroach team that just won't die.

 

This episode was definitely not as enjoyable as the first. Granted, that just may have been due to them destroying the Lego creations.

[blackwing]

It’s unfortunate that the editing and the amount of time spent on each team during the building process really telegraphed that there were really only three teams in danger of going home: Big Hair, Nasty Man and the gay couple.  Was the gay couple even on the first episode?   I cannot remember them or their park at all and it was only a week ago. 
 

There’s something about the frat brothers that I really dislike.  I think it’s the buffer one.  Seems so incredibly smug.  I wish there had been a bottom three and they were there and lost their golden brick.

I really thought Tyler and Amy’s alien was amazing.  The way the tentacles looked was really quite an art.

So happy that Big Hair is gone.  She reminded me of Tammy Faye Bakker for some reason.  She was incredibly bossy towards her mouse of a partner and her building skills were weak.  That spaceship looked so blocky.

As much as I dislike Nasty Man, I do kind of have to agree with him and the judges, the woman’s skills just don’t seem quite there.  That building and dog park were so simple, it was something that even I could have built.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

6 hours ago, Dewey Decimate said:

My mom actually bought two of those large metal mechanics' cases with dozens of tiny plastic drawers and labelled every single one with a lovely illustration of each different Lego piece by size and color. And I actually put every one back in its place when my brother and I were done playing. (I can't imagine why I have control/organization issues as an adult.)

I watched this video purely because of the thumbnail of this guy's color coded system of organization! If you want to see the wall, skip to the 7 minute mark.

 

[Supagirl]

On 2/15/2020 at 3:31 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I watched this video purely because of the thumbnail of this guy's color coded system of organization! If you want to see the wall, skip to the 7 minute mark.

 

OMG, if you spend that much time organizing and playing with Lego, can’t you take some of that time it would take to sort thousands of pieces and, you know, slap a little paint on the walls of that dank basement? Or fix the washing machine? Or lay down some carpeting? He was walking around in his socks on that disgusting floor.  I just can’t.

[roughing it]

On 2/14/2020 at 6:47 PM, Dewey Decimate said:

 Buh-bye ridiculously coiffed woman - did she seriously pull down the safety goggles to dramatically look "over" them during the explosions? Wow, camera-aware much?

I'm sure she spent many an hour practicing all of her expressions in the mirror before filming (or probably even before the audition).

[joanne3482]

On 2/14/2020 at 9:21 PM, Lovecat said:

All I took from this episode is gratitude that I’m not the person who had to clean up, dismantle, sort, and put away all of the pieces after the builds were destroyed!

I was thinking the same thing! I can't imagine who has to clean that up and then put them all back into their finicky little boxes.  

I thought it was kind of interesting and had never really thought about them being broken like that. I  really loved the newlywed's one with the alien and the planet. 

The duo that went home, I noticed one slipped off her shoes while she was working. I was so surprised she didn't end up stepping on Lego. 

So far my favorites are the lumberjack duo, the father/son, and the brothers (one of whom had cancer). I was not enjoying the male married (I think) couple where the one got very anxious. This will not be fun to watch. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

S1.E3: Cut in Half

Quote

LEGO enthusiasts are in for an unexpectedly surprising challenge this week: Each team is given an everyday object - a bicycle, a television or a radio, for example - that has been sliced in two and they are tasked with building its other half. What seems like an easy assignment proves to be far from it. The challenge lies in the judges' expectations; they are looking for a more thoughtful and imaginative recreation of each mundane object. The duos must bring their creativity and their storytelling abilities to the table or be at risk of elimination.

Original air date: 2/19/20

[xfuse]

6 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

LEGO enthusiasts are in for an unexpectedly surprising challenge this week: Each team is given an everyday object - a bicycle, a television or a radio, for example -

It's not surprising if you have seen the Australian version. So far the only difference is that on the first ep they had a mega city instead of roller coaster. The next ep was the same even down to the planet they smashed. Hamish cuts the bike in half at the start. I wonder if they have the same things cut in half. Bike, tv, violin, mixer, video recorder, type writer, and bust. 

One difference from the shows is the winners from last eps gets immunity and don't do the next challenge.

Edited February 18, 2020 by xfuse
added video recorder

[mertensia]

Some of those designs were cool. Even Sam and Jessica 's though I found the mermaid face creepy. Loved the look of that water.  

Loved that clock man. That win was very well deserved.

Love being able to tell the teams apart, too. 

[alexa]

I kind of feel like the judges are annoyed the 2 with the golden brick don't use it.  I sense they criticize their work, just to criticize.  The reactions to their designs seem off to me.  (in that there are others clearly more likely to go home, and at the same time they don't want to compliment their work at all)

[Taeolas]

I've got no problem with the groupings tonight. 

The Clockman and the Mermaid were legit Top 2, and good redemption for the Mermaid pair. Hope they don't take actually winning as a knock agaisnt them, both were fantastic.

Also valid top contenders were:

* The Kraken diving helmet

* The One Octopus Band

* The Telescope of Imagination. 

I think the clockwork mechanics including the moving eye was what ultimately won the competition; it showed an extra degree of difficulty compared to the Mermaid. 

The ones at the bottom were good calls. The Globe Dragons were an unrecognizable mess. We know Lego can do Dragons, but they didn't know how to do it. 

And the Pinata was certainly the worst of the bunch. They should've restarted at the 8 hour point with a better refined idea, but they got stuck with their sunk costs.  Especially since a Pinata is an easy one to make a story out of; they could have done something like the telescope and have it be "Exploding with a fantasy of ideas" or something like that. 

The computer was also dangerously close to the bottom; they came out with a solid idea in the end but it was the most boring of the safe ones. 

The bike-taur monkey was also a bottom project. They basically put the bike at the back of their main element and forgot about it. Had they actually made their monkey look like he was riding the bike (even if they skipped the front half for the rest of the scene) it would have better integrated with the whole project. 

 

 

As for the Golden Brick, in challenge shows like this they do try to get the immunity bricks out of the way as soon as possible, but those Makers could tell they were obviously at best a middle-project compared to at least 3 others. So they were pretty confident that they were safe. The judges comments are just to give them some feedback to keep them from resting on their brick and/or to encourage them to be riskier since they do have a safety net. 

[roughing it]

If you have to come up with some shtick to "sell" your design, you've failed - obviously with the piñata duo, but other stories had me shaking my head "what??"