Fox attempts another feel-good reality show with ‘Lego Masters’
PASADENA, Calif. — New reality show hits have been tough to come by on broadcast television in recent years. For every “Survivor” there’s a dud like Fox’s 2017 reality entry “Kicking & Screaming.”
But Fox struck gold in 2019 with “The Masked Singer,” which debuts its third season at approximately 10:30 p.m. Sunday after “Super Bowl LIV.” Fox execs aim to see if lightning can strike twice in two years with the premiere of “Lego Masters” (9 p.m. Wednesday, WPGH-TV), which follows “Masked Singer” in its regular 8 p.m. Wednesday time slot next week.
Whether back-to-back reality shows is overkill for viewers remains to be seen, but “Lego Masters” has all the elements of a hit beginning with the brand-name toy in its title.
Sure, Legos have been around for decades, but they’ve built an allconsuming brand with an evergrowing roster of kits, the advent of stores (see: the Lego Store at Ross Park Mall and used Lego chain
Bricks and Minifigs, which has locations pretty much everywhere except near Pittsburgh), and an expanding roster of Legoland theme parks (the third in America opens July 4 in Goshen, N.Y.).
Will Arnett, the voice of Lego Batman in multiple Lego feature films, hosts “Lego Masters,” which features 10 teams of two (all adults, no kids) who compete in Lego building competitions on a colorful set stocked with 3 million plastic bricks.
One week the challenge is to build a bridge, another week it’s something “Star Wars” themed with R2-D2 and C-3PO as guest stars.
Between news conferences during Fox’s portion of the recent Television Critics Association winter 2020 press tour, Arnett said he was drawn to “Lego Masters” by the promise of improvisation within the reality competition show format.
“Sometimes it’s really meta but in a very fun way that feels very organic to the brand and to my experience in the Legoverse,” Arnett said. “Because even making the movies, the movies were very meta. And there were a lot of things happening at a lot of different levels. Thematically it’s very onbrand to what I’ve been doing for a very long time.”
As much as the show is about building with Legos, it’s also about the competitors building stories and expressing themselves through their creations.
“There would be teams that were great technical builders but had to learn how to become better storytellers and [there were] great storytellers who had to become better engineers,” Arnett said. “Two of our teams that made it very close to the end came from both ends of that spectrum.”
“Lego Masters” executive producer Anthony Dominici said it’s a family-friendly show that’s meant to be positive and uplifting.
“Everyone thinks that Legos are toys for kids, but there is a huge adult fans-of-Lego community and that’s who our builders are,” Mr. Dominici said. “We really want to celebrate that.”