“Lego Masters” kicks off Season 5 Monday with some pretty crazy twists that leave competitors with their mouths hanging open, asking, “What the…?” First up: the clock is turned off, which is pure torture for those poor souls.
“It’s one of those reminders, you gotta be careful what you wish for,” jokes judge Jamie Berard. “On day one, the builders are like, ‘I wish that clock would go away.’ And it goes away! Then they’re like, ‘No! Bring it back!”
Berard’s judging partner, Amy Corbett, adds, “Especially when you’re in the zone; you’re creating, and you can totally lose track of time. So building without seeing the clock is totally wild — but we don’t want to make it easy for our builders.”
Some of the theme builds this season of the Will Arnett-hosted show include “Star Wars,” “Wicked” and “Batman,” and challenges like a masquerade party, a giant wedding cake… and the incorporation of a real, jumbo-sized waterfall. “It’s one of my favorite challenges,” Berard says. “We actually have a waterfall that the builders have to make a character that goes over the falls. It’s super dramatic, but also super emotional. When you see these characters, you can just tell that that water is just melting like everyone’s heart. It’s so good.”
‘LEGO Masters‘ host Will Arnett with contestants Anne and Luke in the season five premiere.
When you look at the show over the course of its five seasons, one can’t help but wonder what it’s like sitting around a table at Lego headquarters in Denmark, pitching build and challenge ideas.
“We have a whole team that works on these ideas and some of them are just a one-hit wonder. Others are like years in the making that every year we think it would be so cool if we could do a challenge with water, for example,” Corbett says. “So there’s a lot that goes into them, but we also do a lot of testing of the challenges. We try them out. We see how can we make them more exciting? How can we push them further? How can we make more spectacular builds? It’s really a process.”
Berard adds: “We also have a very active fan community that is very happy to share with us their wishes, what they like, which episodes were super exciting to them. It inspires even more challenges to come about. So it’s definitely a collaborative effort. We try to really find the ones that are special — that allow everyone’s creativity to be challenged just enough, but then to surface in ways that nobody expected.”
Season 5 contestants Corey and Rebecca with judges Jamie Berard and Amy Corbett
As the challenges get more complicated and require trickier moving — yet stable — parts, so does the quantity of and types of bricks at the contestants’ disposal. In fact, the numbers will blow you away:
The show’s available supply included more than 4.5 million Lego pieces
There were over 3,500 different types of elements available to teams
The entire Lego supply weighed over 15,000 lbs
The minifig wall held more than 4,000 unique minifigs
To break down just one episode’s builds and re-sort the bricks into the available supply, it took a team of more than a dozen people over a full week
Contestants have access to over 70 different colors of bricks!
The brick pit is divided with over 600 drawers, bins and troughs!
The show also ups the number of bricks in the brick pit every season, which makes it even crazier when they blow up their creations and bricks fly everywhere. An off-stage, brick pit stockroom is arranged very similarly to its onstage counterpart, to ensure speedy restocks. “We have a magical team of helpers who help [clean up] when the explosion happens. Jamie and I tried a couple of times. It’s… a lot. Those pieces get absolutely everywhere,” Corbett says with a laugh.
“Lego Masters” is casting for future seasons, with a live open call at Legoland California. For more details and to RSVP, visit legomasterstv.com.
