I love building with Legos, as regular readers will know quite well. When I was a kid, I would frustrate my older brother because I’d want to “use my imagination” with the pieces instead of building the actual sets. As I’ve gotten older, I very much build what’s advertised on the tin (as today’s contributor might put it).

Still, few things are more fun than diving into a random pile of pieces and just winging it. When my niece and nephews were younger, the one activity they could all get behind was doing just that with Uncle Tyler. We’d dump a bunch of Legos onto my parents’ dining room table and go to town building stuff. They would ask me to build various things for them, but my favorite was seeing the crazy stuff they came up with.

One thing I’ve come to appreciate is that I am not a Master Builder—far from it. I see the things people do with Lego and I realize I am still, in terms of skill, a six-year old building overly geometric structures.

Lego have really gone “mainstream”—not that they were ever on the fringes, but they’re now advertised for everyone from kids to adults—and the talents of millions of builders are easily on display via social media, television, streaming, etc. People will spend hours building entire cities, full of hyper-specific details, or complex spacecraft with motorized parts. It’s all quite fun—and humbling.

Naturally, it’s become competitive, and television shows feature Lego builds taking on insane challenges to see who is, truly, a Lego Master.

With that, here is Ponty’s glowing review of the Australian version of the television series Lego Masters:

I never played with Lego as a child. For that matter, as an adult. When I was growing up, it was expensive just as it is now so we got the cheaper Lego alternative, Stickle Bricks. At the time, my brother and I were into more manageable, pre-made toys rather than something we had to put together to play. It seemed like an hour or so wasted when we could get the instant fix so, unfortunately, those bricks stayed in the bucket. Today, as an adult, gaming is my thing and while Tina is also into gaming, she’s a massive Lego fan too. Last year at Christmas, she got a selection of crackers where instead of the usual mini size cork screws and the like found in most crackers, these contained small Lego builds which she absolutely loved. Several years ago, also at Christmas, she stumbled onto a TV show in which contestants got to compete in Lego builds. It was the British version of the show and the teams comprised of one adult, one child so it didn’t really pique my interest but not much longer after that, we stumbled onto international versions and were completely hooked by the Australian version. Thus, a love I’d never known for those little plastic bricks began to grow.

Australian Lego Masters sees several teams, all adults, competing in a series of challenge builds in order to win the coveted Lego Masters trophy (built entirely of Lego, of course) and $100,000 (Aus) cash prize. Hosted by the crazy Oz comedian Hamish Blake and the only accredited Lego builder in the Southern Hemisphere, Ryan ‘Brickman’ McNaught, it throws our intrepid competitors into a series of games of imagination, skill and technical prowess as, brick by brick, they edge towards their goal of the ultimate Lego builder.

I’ve watched 4 versions of this show – UK, US, New Zealand, and Australia – and the Oz version is the only one I love, mainly because it goes through the process, from conception to putting it together to the completed build. It’s not just entertainment, you get to learn techniques that you yourself can implement in your own builds and it throws out ideas you always wish you’d thought of or at least tried. Like the hanging brick challenge, where a build has to be done from a single hanging brick. Sounds tricky, I know, but with the power of Lego Technic and a lot of risk, some of the finished articles were just breathtaking. Jackson and Alex’s spaceship lifting a farm was just flat out awesome but let’s be honest, all these builds had merit:

The challenges encompass all 3 aspects Brickman looks for in a build – aesthetics, technical ability and story – but not all challenges are for the faint hearted fan. Australian Lego Masters doesn’t only consider beautifully put together structures but actively destroys them too. You’re probably wondering why they’d obliterate a piece that has taken hours to put together but there is a point; in slow motion, it’s to see what they look like in the moments they’re either exploded, smashed, dropped, whatever crazy thing they decide to do on that show. The teams love these challenges, adding their own mix to the end result by putting in red and pink lego bricks, for instance, if they’ve built a creature and want to represent blood and guts as their monster is ripped apart by a blast. Some will add humour or just look to aid their story by injecting their build with extras that might help embellish a story. Damian and Andrew’s prison break build doesn’t entirely go to plan but it looks pretty cool nonetheless:

Still, it must be heartbreaking to see something you’ve spent hours on blown to smithereens.

There are period builds, there are heists, there are other motion challenges, like the bridge challenges, where either a built bridge is subjected to either persistent rocking motions or heavy weights to see which one can last. There are Lego in water builds, monsters, mythical stories and sea creatures, and there are also builds that emote. It’s one of the things that makes our emotional judge, Brickman, proud. When he sees what he’d term a work of art in Lego. Gus and David introduce a few of these in Season 3 with their natural world Lego builds and though their final piece – two deers drinking water from a stream while a pack of wolves surround them – is outstanding, I’ll always remember their tiger, beautifully posed on a branch looking down at meerkats who in turn are looking up at the tiger. It was an amazing build, one which Brickman would have been proud of.

The show is judged in the final by somewhere between 200-250 members of the public, which include challengers who’ve been eliminated and a truck load of kids who get to oohh and aahh at some of the best pieces of Lego ever put together. Brickman, of course, has a golden brick worth 100 votes and it is usually his vote which crowns the winner. I won’t tell you who won any of the series because I really want you to watch this show. The talent is off the charts, the judging is done fairly and Hamish Blake is like the boy who never grew up. He loves Lego as much as the competitors do and this show brings out his inner 8 year old which, to the contestants, isn’t always a good thing. The golden rule is never let Hamish touch your Lego, in case he breaks it. And always keep a watchful eye on him because, as a cosplay fan, he likes to dress up and act out. In one episode, he dresses as a cat burglar, sneaks up behind Gabby and Ryan and asks how their build is going, scaring them out of their wits and causing them to knock over a tower. I’d have put up the clip but the only place I can get it is Channel Nine, which runs the series, and the video seems to be constantly buffering. The guy is a nutter but in the best possible sense.

I’ll leave you with an image of what I think is one of the riskiest Lego builds I’ve ever seen, but which looks pretty awesome, and direct you to watch this amazing show. You can find it on Prime. If you’re halfway interested, trust me, you’ll be a fan at the end of it. I certainly am.