LEGO Masters USA returns June 1st
Posted by TheBrickPal,
As was confirmed via social media pages today, the US version of LEGO Masters will be returning to TV Tuesday, June 1st on FOX. A scheduled time has not yet been revealed, but we can expect it to be aired weekly as usual.
Are you looking forward to the upcoming season, or is the show too 'dramatic' for you? Any certain challenges you'd like to see contestants tackle? Let us know in the comments!
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48 comments on this article
Sweet!
Glad to hear this news.
It is not too dramatic for me.
I’ll take the hit and volunteer to be on the show. Yup taking one for the team I’m selfless I know.
Not really interested. And if it's going to be anything like last season, I'm not particularly looking forward to the high amounts of coverage it will have again. There were a lot of articles in quick succession.
My birthday is in June! What a nice early present!
I just hope they focus on making it more fun than dramatic.
The more dramatic parts of Season 1 felt very forced, and honestly made the show less enjoyable as a whole.
Excited for a 2nd season, really enjoyed the 1st.
@Binnekamp said:
"Not really interested. And if it's going to be anything like last season, I'm not particularly looking forward to the high amounts of coverage it will have again. There were a lot of articles in quick succession."
You can turn off TV show coverage temporarily
https://brickset.com/profile/newspreferences
I'm thrilled. The first season was super fun!
We watched it with our daughter (who was 5 then) and it was a fun thing for the family to watch together so we'll watch the new season too. However, I do wish they would spend more time showing the builds - they get to the end of the episode and it feels like you just get a quick pan of each build.
I do hope that they manage a better balance between contrived reality TV moments and actual LEGO building this time around
I thought the first season was good overall. The amazing builds outweighed the cringe reality TV elements.
I will be interested to see how the contestants cope with the pressure this season. Many of the early teams were clearly not as skilled as the others, and some had meltdowns. It seems like the stress will be even higher if participants were stuck in a Covid bubble for weeks.
The last season was good, but as several people have said above, hopefully, it's more focused on the building and a bit less drama.
Very cool. For some reason I had heard it was starting in September, unreliable news source I guess. And I hope they tone down the contrived drama.
Nice
Yawn.
Yes! Really looking forward to its return.
I’m hoping they do a new Star Wars episode, but one earlier on so there’s more competition.
And maybe a Marvel episode.
Three generations enjoyed this together in my family, so we will tune in again.
@Snaz said:
"
You can turn off TV show coverage temporarily
https://brickset.com/profile/newspreferences
"
thanks for that, yeah zero interest in this for me. glad for you folks that dig it, though
I haven't seen the US version but what I loved about the Australian show is the lack of drama. There was huge emphasis on what the teams are building, why and how. No quivering lips, no betrayals, just nice people having fun with Lego (under immense pressure!)
I loved the first seat, drama and all!
Last season I got several, “Oh, you do this for a hobby, so _you_ should be a contestant!” comments from friends and coworkers. And I had to explain to them that my build style is completely unsuited to this contest format. For the amusement park episode, I probably would have gotten to the end of the challenge with nothing but a couple tiny builds with insanely high piece counts, and a partner who was trying to fashion a knife so they could stab me for blowing a shot at $100,000. But I (mostly) enjoyed watching it.
I don’t believe the drama was contrived. These contestants weren’t handed scripts for how they should interact with each other. Rather, they were constantly being filmed, and any time someone succumbed to the stress and long hours, you could be sure that was going to end up in the episode. And the commercials advertising the episode. And the recap segment for the next episode.
Some of the contestants seemed really cool and I wished they would have lasted longer than they did. A few really came off as having abrasive personalities, and I don’t know how much of that was due to editing, or inability to handle stress, but I would have liked less of those moments (which is another reason why I’d never want to participate in something like this).
Some of the MOCs were clearly speed-built designs that couldn’t spare any time for a good polish, but a few of those models were absolutely convention-worthy, and could have netted award nominations against stuff that people spent an entire year or longer to build.
Mostly, though, I hope that with one year under their belt, they were able to do a better job of building a pool of contestants. With S1, by the end of the first episode I could basically tell who was going to make it through the first half of the season, and who had a real shot at winning. I think I guessed the top half of the field with no misses, my top two both made it to the final challenge, and one of them won.
I'm watching the first season of Lego Masters Australia right now. It's amazing how similar this is to Lego Masters USA. (Yes, I know Australia came first.) These Australian S1 contestants are not in the same league as most of the S1 USA contestants.
I do like that the USA version has Amy Corbett and Jamie Berard with Wil Arnett as the host. I am liking Hamish Blake as a host, but I think USA has the better experts with ACTUAL Lego builders.
One thing I hated in the USA version was the over-the-top product placement from Microsoft for their tablets. I hope that's not back in S2.
To follow up with what @PurpleDave said, it is likely the editing took the few moments of drama that naturally occurred on set and played it up in editing and recaps i.e."do you even know how to Lego?" moment early on in the show that got played up a lot to make us think Sam and Jessica were going to fail only on early to play up the "surprise they are final episode contestants."
But from the members of the cast who already have voices in the AFOL fandom (Mark and Boone, Aaron Newman, etc.) the stories they have mentioned post series wrapping suggest a lot more relaxed state than the editing ever suggested. Everyone went off for a Disneyland trip midway through filming, they had a lot of extra hours not seen on TV to polish their builds when the cameras were off (so long work into the nights but not quite the "down to the hour" buzz the series made it seem like), etc. It just seems the editors found the few moments where the contestants got frazzled and frustrated and cut out the more sedate moments of them just, you know; chilling and building with Lego.
This is a shame, I think it would behoove them to show the more serene behind-the-scenes moments too, but I do think that is where American reality TV production comes in and insists on some sort of "drama" taking place on camera. So even if the reality was more mundane, the editing booth makes sure we see the tense moments and not the sedate ones.
Really my only complaint is a few contestants early on felt like they were throwaways for the cast, it was clear once we hit the final few episodes (multiple MOCer's featured on The Brothers Brick, a BZPower admin, a 10K Club Lego Ideas member, Lego 'influencers') that the final half of the season was always meant to be the "Lego Celebrities" while the first half was padded out by people who didn't know just how far out of their league they were from the moment the show started. This is a shame, it would have been neat to see all the contestants at the same caliber as the finale five teams or so there in episode 1, it would have made the contest more riveting than having those early episodes with very obvious "losers" in those rounds.
Here in the Netherlands the Dutch / Belgian second season is already broadcasting.
Can't wait for season 3 of the Australian show!!
@PDelahanty said:
"I'm watching the first season of Lego Masters Australia right now. It's amazing how similar this is to Lego Masters USA. (Yes, I know Australia came first.) These Australian S1 contestants are not in the same league as most of the S1 USA contestants.
I do like that the USA version has Amy Corbett and Jamie Berard with Wil Arnett as the host. I am liking Hamish Blake as a host, but I think USA has the better experts with ACTUAL Lego builders.
One thing I hated in the USA version was the over-the-top product placement from Microsoft for their tablets. I hope that's not back in S2."
Agreed. The Australian version seems to be the basis for the US version. However, the US version seems to be that little bit more polished... and I could listen to Amy all day! Lego Masters Australia season 3 is dropping teasers at the moment. Host Hamish Blake and judge Ryan 'Brickman' McNaught (a consummate gentlemen in reality!) are returning to our screens here in the Antipodes... yayyyyyy
Whaaat!? The prize is $100k on the US version?
In the UK one it's an oversize trophy made from yellow Lego bricks.
I'll be watching the old US series when it stars on e4 soon. I enjoyed the 2 UK series and the celebrity special.
@AddictedToStyrene said:
"I haven't seen the US version but what I loved about the Australian show is the lack of drama. There was huge emphasis on what the teams are building, why and how. No quivering lips, no betrayals, just nice people having fun with Lego (under immense pressure!)"
Sounds like what I've seen on the Dutch/Belgian version as well as the Polish version. Just nice people having fun with LEGO under immense pressure indeed.
I wish I could watch other versions as well. :/
The contestants on those two versions like(d) to help each other. Polish s1 finished a few months ago. Dutch/Belgian s2 is airing right now. Saturday will be the 5th episode.
@Paternoster_Lift said:
"
Whaaat!? The prize is $100k on the US version?
In the UK one it's an oversize trophy made from yellow Lego bricks.
I'll be watching the old US series when it stars on e4 soon. I enjoyed the 2 UK series and the celebrity special."
The winners of s1 of the Dutch/Belgian version won that trophy, €25k, and a trip to the LEGO House. The winners of s1 of the Polish version also won that trophy, 100k PLN (approx. €22.5k), and a trip to LEGOLAND. And it seems the winners in Australia also get 100k AUD and the French/Belgian version winner gets €20k. And other versions don't get money prices as far as I could find besides Germany which apparently gives a giftcard of €100.
Your question is; “is this a fun watch or structured (thus fake) drama”?
Is there an answer to that question or do you just not like TV?
Nice!
"...or is the show too 'dramatic' for you?"
It's refreshing just to see anybody observe that this might even be a possibility. Yes, like all reality-ish shows, the forced, fake drama is way overdone.
I can't wait! Judges had me yelling at the TV, but overall its good. Kinda silly, but its for the whole family.
Definitely going to watch. Last season did have some drama, but it was still about creating and designing with LEGO. That wins right there over most of what is on tv. I really like Jamie & Amy, I hope they are back.
I'll ask the question again in this thread: Are any of the plans for the entries created on the show available for purchase?
@fulcrumbop said:
"I'll ask the question again in this thread: Are any of the plans for the entries created on the show available for purchase? "
Almost definitely not. Have any of the other versions done that?
Season 1 of the US show said that one of the sets would be on display at Legoland New York. Little did they know that the world would change and Legoland NY would not open in July 2020. Everyone go get vaccinated when you can and hopefully it can open in 2021.
My brother and I were interviewed for Season 1, and Season 2, and obviously nothing came of either interview. I think if I were to get another interview request for a 3rd season, I'd ignore it this time. I'm not upset that nothing came of either, I just think it would be a difficult commitment to make, with both of us having full time jobs and families. It would be difficult to dedicate so much time away from work and family. I'm looking forward to watching the next season.
@PixelTheDragon said:
"I just hope they focus on making it more fun than dramatic.
The more dramatic parts of Season 1 felt very forced, and honestly made the show less enjoyable as a whole. "
unfortunately that's the model of TV shows now. have to manufacture fake drame (or they think they have to) to draw interest. I enjoyed season 1 and will watch season 2, but I also would prefer to see less drama and honestly less "backstory". I don't know or care about any of these people, i just want to see more detail of the builds themselves on camera.
I also thought the first season was too heavily focused on character building, which played right into the hands of the eventual winners. brick built characters are a pretty small subset of production LEGO sets, and also a small subset of what you see at conventions, etc. more locations and vehicles and scenes.
@dougts:
The thing is, the challenges really _weren't_ that focused on character building. They just didn't pointedly exclude it. There was at least one challenge where a team decided to go minifig-scale. For a TV audience, large character builds may seem like they have a clear edge just due to the fact that they're easier for us to take in with a quick glimpse on a TV screen, but the judges would have had time to really get in close with the models and check out the details.
Now, it's been a while since I watched the first season, but I know that Tyler is famous for his large character builds (and rightly so). His team did rely heavily on them, which may have influenced some of the other contestants to do so as well. And the problem is it would be really hard to come up with enough challenges to fill an entire season (with 10 eps, plus the Pinewood Derby, that's at least 11 completely distinct builds) and really limit the number of times a contestant could or should use a large character build. Besides, if you take that away, what do you replace it with? Minifig-scale? Micro-scale? Do you hit a point where it feels like there are too many challenges that focus on those?
Who knows, in the upcoming season and beyond, maybe we'll see a challenge where multiple contestants choose wildly different scales (there already was one where Mark & Boone bucked the trend and built in minifig-scale). And maybe if there isn't anyone in the field who really excels at those large character builds it won't be so lopsided. Face it, Tyler is famous for a reason, and it doesn't have anything to do with this show. The best builders I've personally met might be on par with him, but I can't think of a single person who would have found him an easy opponent to beat.
LEGO Masters Season 2 NL/BE (Dutch spoken) is currently ongoing broadcast, and so far so good.
Obviously drama played up, but some of the builds were neat. As much as I have liked Will Arnett in the past, I didn't care for him as the host. He was too scripted with bad jokes. I think if he had more freedom, he could be funnier and a better host. I felt like he was reading off of a prompt/cue cards. Maybe I'm wrong...
The drama was a bit much, but if you look past it, the builds were fun. Obviously they have a time limit, so you can't see all of the contestants abilities/personalities as much as one would like.
Some of the judging seemed a bit biased at times, but maybe that's how they edited it also.
I didn't tune in until after I already knew who won (I just watched the 1st season this year actually...)
@Sethro3:
From what I understand, the banter while they’re building, at least, is 100% Will. Stuff like the opening statements might be teleprompted, but you don’t want the host guffing that and spoiling the surprise before they can get a usable reaction shot from the contestants.
He also stays there for the entire build session because they have no way of knowing when a “must air” moment will happen (like someone dropping their creation), and it would be rather conspicuous if he was never around for those times. Most of the celebrity guest stars obviously bail as soon as they’ve filmed their clip, though.
@PDelahanty said:
"Season 1 of the US show said that one of the sets would be on display at Legoland New York. Little did they know that the world would change and Legoland NY would not open in July 2020. Everyone go get vaccinated when you can and hopefully it can open in 2021."
The top three final builds were on display at LEGOLAND California in the Big Shop. They were still there in October, 2020. Not sure about now.
Its the presenters that make the show, the UK one is slow and bland; the US series is a little more upbeat, but the Aussie one is full of fun and light bricks ahead of the others. If you get the chance, give it a watch.
SOOOOOO excited!!!!!!!