The final episode of Lego Masters has now aired and the winners have been granted the title of Lego Masters and been given a very large Lego trophy. I found the episode to be funny, tense, and it portrayed the magic of Lego in spectacular fashion. I found Dara O Briain to be very funny and the most helpful celebrity guest judge of the series. Melvin Odoom, the presenter, did not make as many jokes as he has done which was unfortunate, however the programme seemed much less cheesy and much more serious because of it which, I suppose, is not a bad thing given that this episode was the final. Overall, the episode was not the funniest but was the best in the way it was done. For a more in depth analysis of the episode (which I recommend to those who don't mind spoilers) please keep reading.
I found it very good that for the first round, the judges were roughly seven year old kids. This was an amazing idea because it meant the teams had to build for an entirely different audience than they were used to and they had to fit in all of the imagination and creativity into their builds to recreate the story which the child told. I found the initial introduction comments of the children to seem very scripted which I didn't like, however when it came to them talking about what the teams had built, it was very real and I especially loved it when the programme showed the third child play with what had been built. I also found the reactions to the stories to seem scripted because of how over exaggerated they were, however I can see the benefit of these reactions because it adds an extra level of bizarrity to the stories and highlights particularly challenging aspects. It was also very good that the kids talked about specific things they would be looking for in the builds.
I was not particularly happy with the episode showing arguments between the team members because it really lowered the tone, however I can also see benefit to this as it says 'look, it's the final, the pressure is on much more than it has been'.
I found Matthew Ashton's comments on the builds to be very good and constructive as he said what was good and bad, plus picked on small details in the builds. I also liked how he interacted with the kid judges.
One thing I haven't been too pleased about through the series is the amount of reused footage. This episode was much better and didn't reuse too much at once, plus I thought it was a very good choice to not use any footage of the final builds until halfway through the final episode. I really liked it when the episode recapped on what the final two teams had built through the season and I am glad that this was recapped twice, once before they started the final build and again before the completed final build was shown. I liked the zoomed in shots of all of the builds and I liked that even through the final build, worries were still being discussed and the teams were still being questioned on what they were doing. I also liked that it was mentioned how long it took to figure out how to do the typewriter mechanism.
Throughout the episode, the music was wonderful as it perfectly captured the moment it was used in and held onto the magic that Lego can produce. I found it to be a shame that visitors to the museum couldn't act as judges for the final builds but Dara seemed to be a perfect judge. Through my reviews of the series, I have often said at least one of the judges weren't so great in their role but for this episode, all featured judges (the kids, Dara, and Matthew) were amazing. Dara really surprised me in his judging role because of how good he was. He talked about the benefits of Lego when it came to world building, he picked on small details and said why they were good, and he commented on the overall appearance of certain things such as how realistic the scrap paper and pens were. He also mentioned the challenging aspects of both final builds. When it came to the final discussion between Dara and Matthew, Dara was very funny and seemed to make more comments and do more judging.
I really liked that both teams' builds are to be featured in the Lego museum in Denmark, not just the winners and I really liked the message Nate and Steve gave at the end of the episode. I was very impressed with this episode and to me, it neared perfection. I really hope that there is a season two as it is sad to think that this season is over. I would recommend this programme if you have not yet seen it. If you have missed the programme you can catch up at:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/catchup
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