Lego Masters is set to make its return for a fifth season, with a new twist on the show. In a world first, the winners and top teams from previous seasons – plus a new wildcard duo – will face off to determine the best of the best in Lego Masters: Grand Masters, premiering April 10 at 7.30pm on Nine and 9Now.
Back in October, Mediaweek took a trip to Sydney Olympic Park where the show had just began filming and sat down with EP David McDonald.
David McDonald
When asked why the team decided to go ahead with a “best of the best” season, McDonald says that the seeds of the idea were sown back in the second season.
“It’s something that Hamish [Blake], Brickman, and myself have been talking about since series two. We just thought, what if you had the best of the best? The five series mark was the time to do it, because I think people have had their favourite builders through the series.
“Plus, we’ve always had certain challenges that we’ll think, that goes later in the series when they’ve developed their skills a bit more. There are some challenges that we’ve always thought were a bit too hard – suddenly we can do them now. We can really test them, and see how they go.”
Sitting in one of the massive pavilions at Olympic Park, this is the third location that Lego Masters has called home. The show began its time in Melbounre, before moving to Sydney due to Covid restrictions, originally working out of Fox Studios (recently renamed Disney Studios).
“When we moved to Sydney, we were lucky to get into Fox,” says McDonald. “It’s just one of those things – I think half the time people wouldn’t even know that it’s slightly different. The set has had a bit of a makeover, that was always the plan even before we moved, we wanted to give it a refresh and a bit of sparkle. It’s a little bit different again, here in this space.
“The good thing is it means there’s a lot of production going on. You can’t get the space you’re in because it’s taken, someone else is making something which is good for the industry.”
Hamish Blake and Brickman
Asked whether or not Olympic Park would be the show’s home for the foreseeable future, McDonald says that “I would say so, but who knows what happens next? I don’t want to predict anything after the last couple of years!”
With the show growing every year, McDonald says that it’s the relatability of Lego Masters that keeps people coming back, no matter what they can do with Lego bricks themselves.
“We always wanted to do something that was slightly meta, slightly taking the piss out of reality shows – we’ve got adults building Lego in primetime, if we don’t make fun of ourselves first, and the whole genre of reality, we’re missing a beat.
“It’s enduring. I think people enjoy it because they’ve got a passing familiarity with it – you either played with it as a kid, or you’ve got kids, or you’re still playing with it. But you have a passing understanding of how you think it works, so then when you see someone do something amazing with it, that’s when you think ‘How? I know how it goes together, but I couldn’t do that’.
“I think that’s why it works. If it was balsa, I don’t think anyone would care.”
Looking ahead, McDonald says that the future of the show will be bright as long as Lego Masters keeps the heart that draws people to it in the first place.
“I would hope that it would keep evolving, but not too much from where it’s supposed to be.
“It always evolves in a different way because of the cast. You get different things across different series, just because of the players. It’ll be like Gus in series three, the animal guy, or it will be some of the amazing builds that Joss and Henry did. Lots of different creators create different things, and I think sometimes the evolution is just out of those styles.”
With the new season about to hit the airwaves McDonald says that one of the best parts of the show for him has been the “joy of watching people enjoy watching it.”
“It sounds corny, but it’s nice to make a show where people actually say ‘it’s the one show we watch as a family’. There are not many of them anymore.
“It’s got a foot in both camps – we try and get a few jokes away that only the adults get, and the kids can enjoy the Lego. It’s a Pixar film! That one’s for the adults, that one’s for the kids, everyone’s happy.”