Lego Masters (USA) - General Discussion

[blackwing]

6 hours ago, tracyscott76 said:

I, for one, am more than ready for a patented Shocking!Elimination!TM

Oh please let it be the Geek Twins.  My first thought was, but they've gotten so much airtime, they clearly are in the finals.  But then I remember thinking the same thing last year with the Douche Bros.

[IvySpice]

7 hours ago, blackwing said:

Did we really need a rehash of their car going off the cliff, again?

Yes, yes, we do. That will never not be funny. It's the best moment of the entire series IMHO.

[JessDVD]

https://bricknerd.com/home/inside-lego-masters-the-end-of-the-beginning-8-12-21?fbclid=IwAR3pYsW8BeH9NPT8NLmXtZpGKEVPTyhfbE2Kc9AKiDPSE9gJFicsbSU587Y - Maria's post about this week's Lego Masters - although it's more about the process that got them on the show.

[Guest]

Ho hum, all Bros in the top two, no Bros in the bottom two. Surprise, surprise.

It's a bummer to lose Lauren (and the other guy) but this was inevitable. I don't even entirely disagree that theirs was elimination-worthy, but this is too predictable.

Actually, I do kind of disagree. By the standard of movement or whatever, sure, theirs wasn't great...but I'm getting tired of a Lego building competition being judged based on extraneous stuff. Based on looks, I thought Bro/Sis was superior to the sassy princess of the GlassesBros...and I thought the princess looked extremely awkward during the performance, but it got nothing but praise.

Oh well. Zach and Wayne for the win, I guess.

Edited August 18, 2021 by tracyscott76

[mjc570]

I thought that was a really good, fun challenge.  Although all the remaining contestants are good builders, I do think the right pair was sent home, the bro/sis puppy was cute, especially the tennis ball, but just not up to the others.   I doubt they'll make the top 3, but my faves are still Dave and Richard because I love seeing a teacher/student connection.  

I liked the whole puppet idea, it let their personalities come through as well as opportunities for each team's special skills (like the DIYers granny sweater was really nice, it looked like it actually was crocheted, sort of).  I  really hated all those challenges where destruction was built in.  

So now I not only have to FF Will, but his puppet as well.  

[mertensia]

I'm glad Dave and Richard made it through; I hope they win.

The dog was lackluster. I don't think the wrong team went home. At least the others had character - the dog was generic.

[blackwing]

Once again, elimination was telegraphed within the first five to ten minutes.  Brother and sister got to talk way more than they’ve ever talked before.  We see pictures of their childhood.  Brother and sister go home.

It was the right decision.  Their puppy looked great but it had almost zero movement, which was a huge part of the task.  
 

Tonight I learned that the Overalls Girls actually have names... Michelle and Natalie.  They are clearly Marked for Philimination next week.  I disagreed with them being in the bottom two.  Yes the arm fell off but they attached it right back on within five seconds.  Their puppet was great.  The face was expressive and the mouth had good movement and the red haired one added a lot of personality to the voice and she sang.  
 

I didn’t think their puppet was any less blocky than the Geek Twins.  I would have put Geek Twins in the bottom two.  There was little movement on their puppet as well.

I am wholeheartedly rooting for the Viking Brothers.  I still find the larger of Zack/Wayne to be very arrogant.  He has driven a Lamborghini “many times”, he is a great fencer, he is a great archer etc etc etc.  Seemingly half of their builds are about him and how great he is. 

[FnkyChkn34]

On 8/10/2021 at 9:52 PM, JessDVD said:

Arrogant Bros (who mercifully were tolerable this week)...

I really liked that they were cheering for the other teams!  Did anyone else notice that in the background?  Maybe they aren't really as bad as their first impression?

[blackwing]

I noticed that the Viking Brothers chose to partner with Geek Twins instead of Arrogant Brothers.  Their idea (which they flat out said to Geek Twins) was "keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer".  Interesting they seem to acknowledge that they view Geek Twins as their chief enemy/rival, and not the Arrogant Brothers.

In any event, I didn't understand what the point of "partnering up" was.  It seemed like they were all given some sort of script to follow but they could inject their own personality into the scenes.  Partnering up didn't do anything.  It's not like they had to create a story together... it was just each puppet introducing him/herself and alternating dialogue with the other puppet.  It would have been more interesting if the two teams were tasked with coming up with an actual skit that cohesively told a story and made sense with the two puppets.  I thought that's why the Viking Brothers were a dragon and the Geek Twins were a princess.  I thought there was going to be an actual story, and there wasn't.

4 minutes ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

I really liked that they were cheering for the other teams!  Did anyone else notice that in the background?  Maybe they aren't really as bad as their first impression?

Re Zack and Wayne, I'll have to go back and watch again, but there's always the touch of arrogance when they get named in the top two, the way they saunter over to the spot like their name is already on it and it's expected that they will get top two.  There was the earlier time when Viking Brothers beat them when they were both in Top Two, and Larger One did the fake cheering and fake smile and golf clap.  I don't buy that they really cheer for the other teams.  It comes across as fake to me.

And again, I can't help but seem to notice that everything is about Larger One on this team.  None of their stories or ideas are ever about the smaller, glasses one.  Seems to me that Larger One is the the more aggressive and dominant brother, I'm assuming he is the older one and their relationship has always been this way.

[JessDVD]

I zoned out for most of this one. A couple observations:

It is even more very, VERY clear that we are teeing up for the Bro Down that some of us predicted a few weeks ago. Overalls are likely out next week, and MAYBE Chicago/Brooklyn will pull out an upset the following week and edge out over one of the others for a spot in the final.

While it is (somewhat) fun to see Lego creations that can do things in addition to looking great, the problem with this concept is that too often, the creations end up doing neither particularly well. I don't know about the rest of you, but for me, just seeing a really amazing Lego creation that **those people came up with out of their own creativity** is enough for me. I don't need them to ALSO be able to stand up to a wind tunnel or be a puppet or whatever. I think some of the earlier eliminations were really due more to their not managing to do the "looks good" AND the "stands up to whatever ridiculous gimmick we're doing this week", than lack of Lego skills in general.

The thing about Arrogant Bros, I think I finally realized, in addition to what blackwing said, is that it seems like every week they're masters at whatever the thing is this week. A Lambo? Oh, I've driven one of those every weekend for years. Fencing - in addition to being archery masters, we are also highly skilled in fencing. It reminds me of when I asked my rising 7th grader a few weeks ago if she had any idea about what she thinks she wants to do post-secondary, and she started listing off all the things she's "really good" at, which, well, was more indicative of an overabundance of self-confidence than an excess of talent.

That said, I did really like Arrogant Bros' creation this week, I think it might have been my favorite character. I also liked Chicago/Brooklyn's, and while I get the criticism about the motion, Bro/Sis' dog was adorable.

The editing is just bad. So bad. Bad bad bad. Why in the world did we have to spend the first five or so episodes focusing so much on the Bros, that we barely got to see teams like Bro/Sis, Married w/ Children - and then the episodes they're eliminated, it's telegraphed immediately because those teams actually get to show up on screen. It's not like the editors had to make the first few episodes before they knew how it was going to turn out. (They filmed in March, in case you were wondering)

Next week's creations all look bad from the preview, so I'm not really bummed that my family is going to be completely unable to watch it live. My kids also seem to have totally lost interest in the show since Married w/ Children (the ones I know IRL) have been eliminated, even though they've never really met them - they apparently forgot to ask my husband to put it on last night while I was at a meeting.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

I noticed that the Viking Brothers chose to partner with Geek Twins instead of Arrogant Brothers.  Their idea (which they flat out said to Geek Twins) was "keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer".  Interesting they seem to acknowledge that they view Geek Twins as their chief enemy/rival, and not the Arrogant Brothers.

I think that has more to do with the show putting forward this narrative that those two teams are rivals for entertainment's sake than any actual feelings the teams have for each other, so I don't read too much into it.

Aside from the "I've driven a Lamborghini lots of times" bit, I don't think Zach  and Wayne are any more or less "arrogant" than the Viking Brothers. And I think their cheering for other teams is genuine. That's one thing about this show that I can still enjoy - they all like each other and are crushed when it's elimination time.

If the brothers/all male teams are the best, then they're the best (and I think, by and large, they are...except maybe GlassesBros). But yeah...the editing sucks, in terms of contestant airtime. This is a problem that has plagued reality shows since the dawn of time, and they just keep doing it. Team Overalls are lucky Will seems to like them, or they'd be as invisible as everyone else who's already gone.

[LittleIggy]

2 hours ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

I really liked that they were cheering for the other teams!  Did anyone else notice that in the background?  Maybe they aren't really as bad as their first impression?

I never thought the smaller brother was arrogant. As for the larger brother, some people’s personalities don’t come off well on TV. Personally, I find the so-called Viking Bros smug.

[kili]

Quote

And I think their cheering for other teams is genuine.

I sense all the teams get along well and any drama we see is pretty manufactured (e.g. inter splicing clips where reaction shots may not be to what is actually occurring, but it creates more drama). 

I wish they would drop the fake drama and "villian" arcs. "Survivor" survives on that because everybody is voting everybody else of. Make it more like "Making It" where everybody is free to cheer on each other and even help out a little - a big collaboration.  

I think most viewers aren't here to see Team X beat Team Y, we are here to see some mind-blowing creations. 

I think that Laurel and Brian were very good at creating sculptures, but not so great at adapting to the physics of the challenges. They were the only ones who didn't figure out that it was the lighter jaw that needed to drop, not the heavy skull that had to go up in order to do the puppet speaking. 

It will be interesting next week to see how evenly matched the lego builders within a team are. Do they both have the lego skills or is one person carrying the team? For instance, I think Dave has the lego know how, but Richard's creative ideas elevate the team. Can Richard build his ideas on his own and can Dave be as creative without Richard? I suspect Michelle is the better builder, but Nat injects the flair.  Wayne and Zac are both great builders/creative, but Wayne is just a little better. I have no idea about the two other sets of brothers.

[blackwing]

I think one of my issues with this season is that I feel like there has been much less emphasis on storytelling.  And scale of the builds.  Last season, the teams were asked to create these large builds with lots of detail and lots of story.  They created their own large square of theme park, they made space themed builds that were destroyed, they had half of an object that they had to build the other half out of Lego, they had movie genres and had to build a scene, and then add another genre to it, they built a city block and then had it attacked by monsters, they had to tell a story based on words given to them by kids, they created a hero or villain lair, they built a Star Wars droid and then reconstructed a famous Star Wars scene.

This season... I just don't think there's as much emphasis on story.  The parade float, the earthquake building, the hat, the car, the puppets.  I want to see these massive detailed builds with lots of minifigures and things happening.  The only weeks this season that might qualify are the minifigure hero scene with the varied explosions, the floating build, and the wind build.

There's still a lot of creativity, because everything Lego has to do with creativity, but I'm not seeing the cool story builds this season.  So much of Lego sets that you see in the store is not only building them, but then actually playing with them.  I remember the build last year where the pizza people were battling and there was so much going on, above and below ground, it looked like a set that kids would actually play with.

Edited August 18, 2021 by blackwing

[FnkyChkn34]

3 hours ago, blackwing said:

Re Zack and Wayne, I'll have to go back and watch again, but there's always the touch of arrogance when they get named in the top two, the way they saunter over to the spot like their name is already on it and it's expected that they will get top two.  There was the earlier time when Viking Brothers beat them when they were both in Top Two, and Larger One did the fake cheering and fake smile and golf clap.  I don't buy that they really cheer for the other teams.  It comes across as fake to me.

And again, I can't help but seem to notice that everything is about Larger One on this team.  None of their stories or ideas are ever about the smaller, glasses one.  Seems to me that Larger One is the the more aggressive and dominant brother, I'm assuming he is the older one and their relationship has always been this way.

I'm an episode behind, so what I'm talking about was during the wind turbine episode.  I agree that they are still arrogant in several ways, the larger one much moreso that the smaller one (who actually seems very nice), but I'm just saying that maybe they aren't that bad all the time.  The cheering didn't seem fake to me, they were just in the background and whatnot.  If they were faking, they'd fake it when they knew the camera was specifically on them.  

[alexa]

I didn’t really enjoy the puppet challenge much.  I still just want a really good build for once.  I didn’t really get much out of the puppets in relation to their building skills.  

[Black Knight]

13 hours ago, blackwing said:

And again, I can't help but seem to notice that everything is about Larger One on this team.  None of their stories or ideas are ever about the smaller, glasses one.  Seems to me that Larger One is the the more aggressive and dominant brother, I'm assuming he is the older one and their relationship has always been this way.

I'm not sure about that. Glasses one is the better builder and I've thought before that he's the one taking the lead on their builds, at least in terms of the actual building. He may not be the ideas guy, but that doesn't necessarily mean much in terms of who is dominant personality-wise, it just means the larger brother comes up with more ideas. Richard over on the Dave/Richard team is a sweet and gentle guy (as is his partner) and he usually comes up with the ideas for that team.

Zach/Wayne have had one big power clash this season, over whether to use the golden brick, and Glasses guy won that one. His brother was really not happy about it at all, but they seemed to agree that Glasses got to make the final call on that one, I believe because they know he's the better technical builder and so is the project leader, so to speak. If the larger brother is indeed the dominant one, he would have made the call on the golden brick, probably the most important single decision they'll have all season.

I loved Lauren and Bryan's puppet puppy, but as soon as I saw how little the mouth was moving during the skit, I knew they were going home.

[toodywoody]

I feel like this year's builds are so basic or something this year. It doesn't feel like last year's builds. The puppet and crash derby cars just all seemed like boxes with decorations on them. Maybe it's just me.

[IvySpice]

Quote

I think most viewers aren't here to see Team X beat Team Y, we are here to see some mind-blowing creations. 

This!! They're toys, for Pete's sake. This ought to be fun. Let's see what's possible with Legos. I loved the parade floats -- why not more challenges like that? For me, like Great British Baking Show, last season was a great pandemic watch.

I don't find Zach and Wayne arrogant because they have backed up every boast with excellence. To quote Will Smith, "Not conceited, I'm as good as I say I am." Between the fencing puppet, the archery hat, and the dragon in the first challenge (which was maybe my favorite build ever), they have earned my respect. If they drive their build off a cliff next week, maybe I'll revisit the question.

Edited August 19, 2021 by IvySpice

[Shermie]

Quote

This ought to be fun. Let's see what's possible with Legos.

Nitpick - it's Lego, not Legos. I know Americans like to say Legos, but that's like saying your house is furnished with Ikeas.

I agree that most viewers, including me, probably tune in to see awesome and creative builds, not gimmicky ways to demonstrate physics.

[FnkyChkn34]

I'm caught up now, and I didn't really care for the puppet episode.  It was... weird.  And I suppose that I didn't totally follow it, either because I didn't understand the whole script part.  They got a script in the beginning, but is that what they actually acted out at the end?  I suppose it doesn't even matter...  And I think the red-head didn't go home only because she could sing.

I thought the Jamaican DJ and Panachio the Pompous Fencer were the best.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Shermie said:

Nitpick - it's Lego, not Legos. I know Americans like to say Legos, but that's like saying your house is furnished with Ikeas.

I think saying "Legos" is just typical convenient shorthand that happens with a lot of brands...like saying "Nikes" instead of "Nike sneakers". I remember in the old Lego catalogs, the company had a little blurb asking people to say "Lego bricks or toys" instead of "Legos", but that's kind of clunky.

If one is referring to the whole concept, brand, or company, I would agree that "Lego" is more correct, but when talking about the individual bricks themselves, I think "Legos" has long since moved into common usage and is here to stay. (And is that really a purely American thing?)

Back to the show, Lauren (of Bro/Sis) did an AMA on Instagram, and I asked her if she wished there were more straight-forward builds over all the gimmicks, but she didn't answer. Probably trying to keep it positive, which I can respect.

[Black Knight]

5 hours ago, Shermie said:

I agree that most viewers, including me, probably tune in to see awesome and creative builds, not gimmicky ways to demonstrate physics.

I don't even mind that, but what I don't tune in for is Will Arnett and his stupid bits. They suck up so much time that should go to the teams (so it's not obvious every week who's getting eliminated because suddenly they have a bit of airtime), to their builds, and to the information Jamie and Amy share about Lego building.

I wonder if one of the reasons the brother teams get so much airtime is because they are willing to go along with Arnett's stupid bits. It's so painful every time he has one of the geek bros awkwardly scream something about the "rivalry."

Ultimately the show just doesn't seem to trust that an audience tuning in to a Lego show actually wants to see...Lego.

[Shermie]

Quote

I think saying "Legos" is just typical convenient shorthand that happens with a lot of brands...like saying "Nikes" instead of "Nike sneakers". I remember in the old Lego catalogs, the company had a little blurb asking people to say "Lego bricks or toys" instead of "Legos", but that's kind of clunky.

If one is referring to the whole concept, brand, or company, I would agree that "Lego" is more correct, but when talking about the individual bricks themselves, I think "Legos" has long since moved into common usage and is here to stay. (And is that really a purely American thing?)

Yes, it's an American thing. And saying Legos is not a shorthand for Lego. "Pick up your damn Lego" is pretty succinct. 

I noticed that the geek bros get way more camera time than any other team. The camera cuts to them for reaction shots constantly. It could be a drinking game if you want to get drunk.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Shermie said:

Yes, it's an American thing. And saying Legos is not a shorthand for Lego. "Pick up your damn Lego" is pretty succinct.

For the record, I didn't say that Legos was shorthand for Lego. I said it was shorthand for "Lego bricks" or "Lego toys", which is what the company used to try to get us to say. It's basically a contraction (and I still doubt that it's only Americans who do it). I don't say "Legos" myself, but I don't think it's worth correcting people who do. But to each their own.

[LittleIggy]

I say Legos. If that bothers anyone, I don’t care. 😏

[Guest]

Challenge-wise, that was much better. A cool idea that allowed them to focus on just building something neat, and the mashup twist wasn't thrown at them in the midst of building.

Elimination-wise, the brothers all remain untouchable. They have to be the final three, right?

[mertensia]

Man, I hate losing Dave and Richard. I get why they left - they didn't make the penguin unique enough (coral, really?????) but why weren't the Viking bros in the bottom two?

[LittleIggy]

29 minutes ago, mertensia said:

Man, I hate losing Dave and Richard. I get why they left - they didn't make the penguin unique enough (coral, really?????) but why weren't the Viking bros in the bottom two?

They should have been. Their merged creature looked like a lamp. A very ugly lamp. The Mom’s creature was better than theirs. It just blended too much into the “cheese” environment they made. 
The twins’ creature was adorable.

[blackwing]

So much time wasted on the Evil Will schtick... aargh.  I find him generally inoffensive but I agree that a lot of time is spent on him.  Maybe if he were a little funnier I would appreciate these bits more.  If Joel McHale was hosting this show instead, I probably wouldn't mind so much.

I agree that the Viking brothers should have been in the bottom two purely because of the mismatched scale of their finished animal.  But I also wish that the judges had more clearly outlined the rules of the merged creation.  Were they not allowed to rebuild any of it at all?  Because I spent time wondering why they just didn't rebuild the giraffe but on a larger scale.  Since they didn't, I assume they had to take their creations as is, and find ways to merge them.

Nonetheless, I'm not sure how fair it would have been to eliminate a team purely on the basis of mismatched scale.  This was a blind challenge, the partners had no idea what the other was doing.  But it shouldn't have been hard to figure out, when they are on opposite sides of a wall each doing their own thing, and only given five hours to build, it seems a pretty good indication that the two animals would be combined.  I thought they would have had to create a story using both animals, that would have been way better in my opinion than merging the two.

If the teams were going to be judged on scale, I think it would have been fair to allow them to talk to each other.  They still can't see what the other is doing, but they should have been allowed to describe their animal and the scale.

That said, Dave and Richard were the clear losers here.  I would have said they lost just based on Richard's coral alone.  His coral was terrible.  You're asked to build a "sea creature" and you build coral?!?!?  Seemed like a huge cop-out.  Yes, I know coral is a living organism and thus it could technically be considered a "creature", but why coral?  I think it's because he isn't a good builder, the finished coral ended up looking very blocky.

I would have criticised him for the size of the coral itself.  If he's going to do coral, do massive coral and more variety.  Fan coral, finger coral, brain coral.  He basically made rectangles, and for all he talked about colour, there were mostly pink and orange.  

I thought Overalls Girls rat and eel were both great looking and didn't understand why they got beat down so bad.  Yes, the cheese environment overwhelmed it, but I thought the creature was still underwater and that was like cheese seaweed growing from the bottom.

It's looking pretty evident that there is going to be an all brothers final.  Overalls Girls seem by far the weakest.  I would assume that next week is the last week to use the Golden Brick, otherwise we would have been told it and it surely would have been used.  So Viking Brothers are assured a place in the finals?

Still not liking the Larger One of Zack/Wayne.  I know some might defend him by saying "he might not have made that face at that time, it was editing", but I really disliked the expression he had when the one Viking said they weren't using the Golden Brick.  It was like a sigh of frustration.

I don't think the Golden Brick would have come back into play anyways?  If the Viking Brothers had used it, then next week we have four teams left, they're not going to award the Golden Brick again at the end of the round because surely it is meaningless once we get to the final three?  So I'm not sure why it bothered Larger One so much that it wasn't used.  Unless he wanted it used in a "well, we had to use it, and so did they, so we are on an equal footing going into the final round" way.

[ShelleySue]

39 minutes ago, blackwing said:

That said, Dave and Richard were the clear losers here.  I would have said they lost just based on Richard's coral alone.  His coral was terrible.  You're asked to build a "sea creature" and you build coral?!?!?  Seemed like a huge cop-out.  Yes, I know coral is a living organism and thus it could technically be considered a "creature", but why coral?  I think it's because he isn't a good builder, the finished coral ended up looking very blocky.

I would have criticised him for the size of the coral itself.  If he's going to do coral, do massive coral and more variety.  Fan coral, finger coral, brain coral.  He basically made rectangles, and for all he talked about colour, there were mostly pink and orange.  

And keep in mind he took five hours to build that. Even the "worst builds" (like the balloon) are umpteen times greater than anything I could do -- usually.  But I'm almost certain I could have done the coral.

Why didn't I know that one of the Overall Women had a Southern accent?  Has she ever talked before?

[alexa]

50 minutes ago, blackwing said:

So much time wasted on the Evil Will schtick... aargh.  I find him generally inoffensive but I agree that a lot of time is spent on him.  Maybe if he were a little funnier I would appreciate these bits more.  If Joel McHale was hosting this show instead, I probably wouldn't mind so much.

I agree that the Viking brothers should have been in the bottom two purely because of the mismatched scale of their finished animal.  But I also wish that the judges had more clearly outlined the rules of the merged creation.  Were they not allowed to rebuild any of it at all?  Because I spent time wondering why they just didn't rebuild the giraffe but on a larger scale.  Since they didn't, I assume they had to take their creations as is, and find ways to merge them.

Nonetheless, I'm not sure how fair it would have been to eliminate a team purely on the basis of mismatched scale.  This was a blind challenge, the partners had no idea what the other was doing.  But it shouldn't have been hard to figure out, when they are on opposite sides of a wall each doing their own thing, and only given five hours to build, it seems a pretty good indication that the two animals would be combined.  I thought they would have had to create a story using both animals, that would have been way better in my opinion than merging the two.

If the teams were going to be judged on scale, I think it would have been fair to allow them to talk to each other.  They still can't see what the other is doing, but they should have been allowed to describe their animal and the scale.

That said, Dave and Richard were the clear losers here.  I would have said they lost just based on Richard's coral alone.  His coral was terrible.  You're asked to build a "sea creature" and you build coral?!?!?  Seemed like a huge cop-out.  Yes, I know coral is a living organism and thus it could technically be considered a "creature", but why coral?  I think it's because he isn't a good builder, the finished coral ended up looking very blocky.

I would have criticised him for the size of the coral itself.  If he's going to do coral, do massive coral and more variety.  Fan coral, finger coral, brain coral.  He basically made rectangles, and for all he talked about colour, there were mostly pink and orange.  

I thought Overalls Girls rat and eel were both great looking and didn't understand why they got beat down so bad.  Yes, the cheese environment overwhelmed it, but I thought the creature was still underwater and that was like cheese seaweed growing from the bottom.

It's looking pretty evident that there is going to be an all brothers final.  Overalls Girls seem by far the weakest.  I would assume that next week is the last week to use the Golden Brick, otherwise we would have been told it and it surely would have been used.  So Viking Brothers are assured a place in the finals?

Still not liking the Larger One of Zack/Wayne.  I know some might defend him by saying "he might not have made that face at that time, it was editing", but I really disliked the expression he had when the one Viking said they weren't using the Golden Brick.  It was like a sigh of frustration.

I don't think the Golden Brick would have come back into play anyways?  If the Viking Brothers had used it, then next week we have four teams left, they're not going to award the Golden Brick again at the end of the round because surely it is meaningless once we get to the final three?  So I'm not sure why it bothered Larger One so much that it wasn't used.  Unless he wanted it used in a "well, we had to use it, and so did they, so we are on an equal footing going into the final round" way.

Totally agree.  The coral alone should have lost the challenge for them--it was the smallest piece of coral ever, and brought nothing to the challenge, even as it was before the two items were combined.  

[FnkyChkn34]

The Viking Brothers needed to be in the bottom two, not the Overall Ladies.  If Dave and Richard were going to be punished for the small coral and the inability to mash them up (I mean, really - what else were they going to do?) then the Viking Brothers did too for the small giraffe.  Just because the RatEel blended into the background was not a big enough reason to put them in the bottom two teams.  

I definitely agreed with the winner, but I didn't understand what Jamie said about the color of it.  It was colorful!  A blue chameleon, a red lobster, the brown log, the plants in the bog... They had realistic, life-like colors, and that's usually my favorite.  Don't go making pink water or purple trees on me; I don't like those "colorful" builds as much as realistic ones.

Edited August 25, 2021 by FnkyChkn34
fixed typo

[IvySpice]

I thought the ranking of teams this week was exactly right. I disagree that they just stuck the giraffe head on top of the jellyfish; it was clever to have a million giraffe-leg tentacles flowing from the jellyfish. I also loved the transparent kelp. That was some of the most beautiful scene creation this season. They even achieved an impressively sturdy creature given that it was supported above the surface in contrast to everyone else's grounded characters. The judges put them in the middle where they belonged.

The coral was a goddamn embarrassment. I could absolutely have built something better in 5 hours. It was a stupid choice to begin with -- with all the sea creatures in the world, you choose an immobile one where even Disney imagineers couldn't show any character? And then you make it tiny and uniform and almost monochromatic? I guess his teammate was responsible for the imagination AND the execution of their earlier builds. They had to go home even if the combined build turned out to be a work of genius. I hate, hate, hate that the only black contestant to progress this season was revealed to be an empty suit.

I share everyone's boredom with the Will Arnett bits. I'm generally a fan of his work, especially on 30 Rock, but it's not at all why I watch this show.

Edited August 25, 2021 by IvySpice
Misstated whether there were other contestants of color

[blackwing]

What is most surprising to me is that Dave and Richard had the most wins (three) of any of the teams.  They won Earthquake, Demolition Derby, and Wind Turbine.  I was surprised they lasted this long, apart from the creativity of their sound garden in the Wind Turbine, I think their builds have been mostly forgettable.  Especially that awful Carnivale hat and their boring blocky Fibonacci building.

Viking Brothers have won twice (Floating Build and Puppet).  Zack and Wayne surprisingly have only won once (Parade Float) although they have come in second place four times.  And the Geek Twins have only won once, this week with the Creature Mashup.

24 minutes ago, IvySpice said:

The coral was a goddamn embarrassment. I could absolutely have built something better in 5 hours. It was a stupid choice to begin with -- with all the sea creatures in the world, you choose an immobile one where even Disney imagineers couldn't show any character? And then you make it tiny and uniform and almost monochromatic? I guess his teammate was responsible for the imagination AND the execution of their earlier builds. They had to go home even if the combined build turned out to be a work of genius. I hate, hate, hate that the only person of color to progress this season was revealed to be an empty suit.

Agreed that it was obvious that Richard must have contributed little in the way of design and execution in all of the earlier builds.

But I just wanted to point out that Zack and Wayne are Asian-American (specifically, Filipino), and therefore, they are BIPOC/minority/people of colour.  Otherwise, yes, by week four we had already lost the brother/sister team of Randall and Syreeta, as well as the engineer friends, one of whom is South Asian and the other is East Asian (Japanese).

Edited August 25, 2021 by blackwing

[lynxfx]

I don't get the complaints about scale. These are fantasy mashup creatures. They can be any scale they want.

Although that giraffe made me think of this old commercial. 

 

[IvySpice]

blackwing, you're right -- I'll edit my post.

[mlp]

I'm surprised that Lego doesn't insist upon more focus on their product.  They have all kinds of special bricks and gizmos and so on and I'd like to see how they work.  I'd also like to see how the contestants are using these things and why.  That would be 100X more interesting than Will's nonsense.

[Black Knight]

On 8/25/2021 at 6:23 AM, blackwing said:

But I also wish that the judges had more clearly outlined the rules of the merged creation.

The editing is to be blamed, not the judges. On all these shows the rules given are much more detailed than actually makes it to air. There's no question the Viking brothers wouldn't have rebuilt the giraffe larger if they could have - since it was a mash-up, it's not like they would even have had to build an entire giraffe, just the parts they needed.

If I didn't know Dave and Richard were going home as soon as he pulled out the notes, I certainly would have when he started crying over them in a "Look how they had faith in me and I've let them down by being eliminated!" fashion.

Zack and Wayne's lionfish/croc was impressive, but I also found it really hard to tell what was part of the background and what was part of the lionfish/croc.

I really liked the eel head and was sad to see it dumped, though I completely understand why the moms made that decision. The rat had to be part of it somehow and the rat's body was boring while the eel's wasn't. It's a pity for the cheese background that they didn't go with the light white yellow color they briefly discussed.

I forget which team, but one mentioned being surprised that there was a second part to the challenge. Really? Between the question of how elimination could possibly work and the fact they were only given 5 hours for the first part, every single team there should have realized what was going to happen.

[akg]

On the show's diversity, it was really nice to see a Black puppet after so many episodes of yellow minifigs and characters. 

[NeenerNeener]

So we're going to lose the Moms tonight, right?

On 8/25/2021 at 7:09 PM, mlp said:

I'm surprised that Lego doesn't insist upon more focus on their product.  They have all kinds of special bricks and gizmos and so on and I'd like to see how they work.  I'd also like to see how the contestants are using these things and why.  That would be 100X more interesting than Will's nonsense.

This is why my Lego-mad niece doesn't watch this show. She wants to know the technical details of how to build these things, and we never get to really see that.

ETA: Glad to be wrong about who went home!

Edited September 1, 2021 by NeenerNeener

[LittleIggy]

I think Zack and Wayne should have won. Their flying pig house was amazing.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, LittleIggy said:

I think Zack and Wayne should have won. Their flying pig house was amazing.

It truly was amazing in terms of the motion and scale, but I think the haunted house hewed more closely to the theme of the challenge - it lived up to the idea of "renovate a boring house into a non-boring house" the most out of the four - and they had lots of different kinds of movement as well.

Edited September 1, 2021 by tracyscott76
"into" not "in"

[JessDVD]

I didn't like any of those houses and thought they should have done a 4-way elimination, in the interest of bringing back some of the previous teams. Geek Twins' story was my favorite but the build was underwhelming. Pig build had a lot of movement but was ugly. Viking bros, I've already forgotten. Overalls girls was fine, but not great movement or really cool looking.

Choosing not to eliminate anyone was dumb and they already did that once this season.

The one really good thing about this episode though, was that the terms of the build weren't weird or dumb, just build something cool using these pieces and whatever else you need. Next week looks awful again.

[mertensia]

I was quite impressed by that pig! 

I laughed when the twins kept wondering what in Hell they were supposed to do with snakes.

Amy looked really good in that black jumpsuit; they need to dress her in stuff like that more often. 

[blackwing]

I suspected there was going to be a non-elimination because the Viking Brothers were not informed that this was their last chance to use the golden brick.  Once we get down to three teams, it doesn't make sense that the golden brick could still be used.  So I was waiting for them to be told that if they didn't use it this round, it was a souvenir.  But that didn't happen.  So I suspected that nobody would go home.

I thought their haunted house was great and I don't understand why they had so little confidence in it.  The house itself looked great, and they had some nice movement touches like the spinning ghosts in the window.

I loved Michelle and Natalie's theme, it was playful and fun. 

I would have had Geek Twins and Zack and Wayne in the bottom two.  The Geek Twins house was plain looking, and there was hardly any movement at all.  I really thought they were going to have movement with the volcano "exploding" and ejecting a bunch of lava snakes, instead of them just laying static on the slope.  The whole build itself made zero sense and was thrown off with the snake addition which made them switch to a volcano.  They should have had more snow all over the entire build, and then suddenly the mountain they thought was just a mountain actually was a volcano.  The ski lift wasn't actually a ski lift, there were no chairs on it?

12 hours ago, LittleIggy said:

I think Zack and Wayne should have won. Their flying pig house was amazing.

11 hours ago, tracyscott76 said:

It truly was amazing in terms of the motion and scale, but I think the haunted house hewed more closely to the theme of the challenge - it lived up to the idea of "renovate a boring house into a non-boring house" the most out of the four - and they had lots of different kinds of movement as well.

I thought the pig house had great movement with the flapping wings, but that thing wasn't a house.  It was a pig with square holes in it.  I also thought it was really ugly and I agree with Jamie that it was very blocky.  It was basically a rectangle with flapping wings on it.  They were supposed to tell a story, there wasn't much story at all.  Why a house that looks like a pig?  I thought they were going to throw something in there about how something would happen "when pigs fly".  They chose to focus pretty much only on the movement, the rest of their story made little sense.  I also thought the snowboards were used poorly, they basically attached them to the wings and didn't do anything else with them.

 

[KeithJ]

Surprised to see no elimination last night.  It would have been interesting to see who went home between the twins and the girls though.

[Black Knight]

10 hours ago, JessDVD said:

Choosing not to eliminate anyone was dumb and they already did that once this season.

That was a planned non-elimination. They want three teams competing in the finale, not two, and the non-elimination episode can't be the penultimate episode. Which, for this particular competition show, I agree is the right number of teams. Two is not enough.

The flying pig house was my favorite. Mark and Steven's build was too boring for me - I couldn't get past the color of the house. Yeah, I really associate beige with haunted houses and Dracula...no.

If this had been an elimination, the geek brothers should have gone home. I'm glad the moms are still here because the way the red-haired mom subtly shades Will's stupid bits pleases me.

I really like the concept of the challenge for next week.

[kili]

Quote

I thought the pig house had great movement with the flapping wings, but that thing wasn't a house.  It was a pig with square holes in it.  

Yes, the pig wasn't a house. They could have spent a bit more time making it have doors and windows. It also felt that they had already shown that  kind of waving movement much better with their dragon float. 

I think making them re-use all the house blocks was a bit of a mistake. It lead to blandness to the beige colour on the haunted house, the weird light blue base to the circus and the sameness in the houses in the twin's build. It may have also led to the pig having so few house features (if they had to make it largely hollow to allow all that movement). No house flip uses all the old material - maybe they should have had to retain just one feature.

[JessDVD]

My kids are watching the newest episode right now and they are actually laughing at Will chewing the scenery, so I guess if they're trying to market this thing to the elementary and middle school age demographic, they're succeeding.

I had no idea how many episodes were left but if the contestants know that there are 2 left after this and there would be no elimination on this one, then Viking bros giving up the golden brick makes no sense? All of the talking heads make it sound like they didn't know, although those are filmed afterward so who knows. The show never addresses them using it when they didn't really need to.

Geek twin and the last second piece thing was random and felt contrived... Was it supposed to be some random piece from the original house that they somehow realized they had forgotten?

I like the flying pig more on a rewatch but the wings and their motion are so overbearing that they hide the actual house parts underneath. Viking bros' movement was much more subtle but it brought more to the story than LOOK WE CONNECTED TEN MOTORS AND WINGS TO THE BODY. 

I still want, by which I mean am fully aware it's not going to happen, Overalls Girls to get a spot in the finale, but I still don't much care for their circus.

Nobody seems to be all that confident in their builds today, that's for sure.

My kids' consensus is that the Geek Twins are going home.