Today we feature a guest article from BrickNerd’s patron Liz Puleo who shares her experience as a contestant on LEGO Masters Season 3 which premiered in North America this week on FOX. Warning that this article contains spoilers for the first episode.

The Real World

What is the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions reality television? Most people have strong opinions on the matter and speak freely about them. Some believe it is all scripted and mindless entertainment—others believe that it can be a view into the harsh realities that some people do actually face and can be educational. But what about reality TV competitions?

Reality TV competitions take it to another level. Here you have reality TV that is paired with a competitive environment and all created in front of a multitude of cameras for viewers’ enjoyment. Competitions shows vary from showcasing human feats of strength and athletics to the creative side with glass blowing, singing, cake making, and even creating tattoos. By watching these shows, we share in the success and defeat along with the competitors—we see some individual’s lives be celebrated or maybe even vilified on these shows.

As a contestant on LEGO Masters Season 3, rather than give a play-by-play recap of what happened in the first episode of our season, the cast collectively wanted me to share what we think sets LEGO Masters apart from the other reality shows, and answer the question, “Why do we keep coming back for more?”

Family Ties

Personally, I think what makes LEGO Masters so special has nothing to do with the competition aspect of the TV program, but more about the people you meet. While it is in fact a competition, I never expected to come out of the experience bonding with other cast members on such a deep level that so few of us get to experience in our lives—it was like a long-lost family that had finally found each other.

Family can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. When someone joins a new hobby, they don’t immediately think that the members of the hobby community will be their new family. However, you take those people who are passionate about it and let them free with their creativity to interact and then suddenly the bond grows like a fire fueled by pure oxygen. We are now a LEGO Masters family, a group that laughs together, cries together, and celebrates each other for the qualities they bring to not only the show but to the LEGO hobby itself. The other unexpected thing was the previous season’s cast members have adopted us into their families as well!

From the moment we arrived on set, all of us had some understanding that something special was happening. Looking at the teams—we came from all over North America and have such diverse backgrounds—it seems likely we would never have met one another if it weren’t for this little plastic brick. One might assume that with the environment being a competition that tensions would be high and there would be drama between teams. The truth is that there was nothing but love and respect for one another—and a deep appreciation for what each team brought to the competition.

Stephen Joo, one of the firefighters on the show from Canada had a good thought about finding common ground with competitors that resonates with me to my core: “It’s not always easy to find common ground with any group of strangers, LEGO seems to be a notable exception. It’s a toy, a medium, that almost everyone has been exposed to in their lives and it creates bonds beyond the obvious clicking of bricks. This was particularly obvious with the Season 3 group having cast members from all areas of North America, coming together to collectively foster group creativity. It's almost a sort of universal language.”

Lost In Space

Looking at that first challenge (building a space vehicle that tells YOUR story that can dock to a hanging space station), we learned so much about one another. Listening to each of the teams describe how their build reflected them made the appreciation grow. We collectively all agreed that even though we knew it was a competition, none of us wanted to see a team eliminated for technicalities, sabotage, or anything else malicious—and that we would support each other as much as we could to help everyone do their best.

An example of that happened right at the end of the first challenge when we were all trying to mount our spaceships at the same time—the hanging rig kept swinging making it very difficult to secure some of the fragile builds. Erin Laundry, my partner, had a great memory about that moment: “All of us took turns holding the edges of the giant spaceship, and each time a new team was headed for their mount we’d steady it, and talk them through how far they had to go before they were hooked in securely.”

From what I’ve seen on other reality competitions, that camaraderie might not have happened. From the get-go, we had a mindset that “together we could do our best” and that we would do anything to see that happen, for our own team or others. We decided to build each other up, not tear them down. Justin Sommer, one of the doctors on the show felt that too: “I thought the coolest thing was that, despite being a high stakes competition, I never felt like anyone wanted any other team to fail or do poorly, but rather that everyone is able to build something amazing. I can’t imagine a lot of other competitions are like that.”

Much like a family, we all enjoyed bantering with each other too— trash talking if you will, but it came from a place of love and good humor. Emily and David were constantly bantering and it was so funny to hear them converse. Brendan and Greg were the same. Seeing siblings “fight” over an idea and then work together like nothing happened 10 minutes later made me feel like we all had a fun-loving familial bond. We instinctively knew we could tease each other and have fun within the group, but the second an outsider says something negative about anyone, we’ll defend each other until the end of time.

Eddie Gooden, partnered with his sister Asiza, said he feels the same bond when chatting about the cast of friends: “I can’t say that I’ve made a single friend since my 20s until this LEGO Masters show happened. Now I feel like I’ve gained a whole new family—all because of these bricks! Personally, there were some strong feelings of imposter syndrome once I met you all and saw what you were capable of, but every single one of you had nothing but kind encouraging words the whole time. It really means so much more than I can even articulate to y’all. I’m grateful and feel so blessed to be a part of this fam.”

All In the Family

I asked a few other of my fellow cast members how they felt. Emily Mohajeri Norris, of the mother/son team with her son Liam, told me about their experience: “When my son Liam went through his teens, his number of friends interested in LEGO dwindled. I hoped for and tried to help him find his tribe in the LEGO community. LEGO Masters gave him that on a level neither of us ever could have dreamed possible. All the contestants are amazing builders, share a love of LEGO, and just want each other to succeed.“

“A hidden bonus was that my fellow female contestants on LEGO Masters cheered me on to develop my own LEGO legs beyond the support role I’ve played for so many years as a LEGO mom. Everyone in our LEGO Masters family is incredibly loving and encouraging, but the LEGO sisterhood is especially meaningful in a traditionally male-dominated space. Liam and I both bonded with our new LEGO Masters family and have made lifelong friends that are so beautifully diverse, yet unified in our love of LEGO.”

Kerry Woo of the Grandpappies agreed, sharing his experience too: “Family takes on a whole new meaning when you’re surrounded by passionate LEGO enthusiasts and extremely talented and genuinely good people. Not a competition, but rather a shared love to create. I love my LEGO Masters Season 3 family deeply; even the Season 1 and 2 US casts and Australian contestants are dropping notes of encouragement towards us. My heart is full.”

Legends of Tomorrow

Back to that first episode, when we were finally done building, nothing could prepare us for the nerves we all felt during judging. Jon, Xavier and myself did a little dance while waiting to calm our nerves—I’m sure the cameras saw it! Standing next to them was amazing because they were so supportive of everyone and super fun individuals to hang around with. We were all in such awe of each other’s builds—the distance that Nick and Stacey got on their ship, the pure eye-catching quality of the Stephens’ Firefighter Maltese Cross, the lights and action from the Grandpappies, and so many other amazing things! Each team had truly shown some incredible work, and I felt incredibly lucky to be standing with these talented builders.

After we all presented our stories and were waiting for judging, there was no negativity in the group at all. Every team was gushing about everyone else and how impressed they were, even though all of us were feeling nervous about our own. With it being the first challenge, none of us really quite knew if we had what Brickmasters Jamie and Amy were looking for.

As the top two teams were announced, our family erupted in joy! Stephen Joo is his own worst critic and the utter relief on his face when he was named to the top two was contagious—we all couldn’t help but share his joy. Nick and Stacey defied gravity and physics with their eye-catching ship and completely deserved being in the top two as well. When the Stephens’ won that first challenge it came as no surprise to some of us really—their build looked downright stunning hanging on the space station from close or from afar. What came next we were all dreading but knew it was part of the show. Time for the bottom two.

Waiting to hear the names called was the worst feeling, like having a rolling rock in your stomach—heavy and uncomfortable and like you’re going to pass out or puke at any moment. You didn’t want your name to be called of course, but you didn’t want any of your new family called either! Seeing the Doctors and Drew and Miranda being called to the front was so sad, and to be honest terrifying that it could have been any of us. Drew and Miranda had a great eye-catching build! How could this be happening?

None of us expected the strong emotions we would have at the very unprecedented and shocking first elimination. In previous seasons, the first episode has always been more of a “getting to know you” build and not an elimination round. When the bomb was dropped that a team was, in fact, going home on the first challenge, our hearts all collectively sank. Erin and I were so nervous that we might be in the bottom two, that when our names weren’t called our momentary relief turned to sadness realizing that someone else from our family would have to go home.

Drew and Miranda are the nicest kids from Idaho, brother and sister from a large family, and their build was striking. The result happened so fast and we didn’t have enough time with them to say goodbye. My heart was breaking and tears started welling up immediately and I knew I wasn’t the only one. Tacos (Christine) and Michelle were tearing up, along with so many others. This was real, and our fantasy of building together every single day was going to come crashing down for almost all of us at one point or another. It was at that point of the first elimination that I knew Erin and I would do whatever it takes to stay with our LEGO Masters family as long as possible—we’d work harder than either of us had ever worked before.

Moving forward, the rest of us vowed to make the most of every moment together. We wanted to keep our family unit together as long as possible. At this point, the only thing we knew was that LEGO Masters Season 3 was going to be different than any season before.

I’ll leave you with a few pictures of our first LEGO Masters family BBQ taken by Kerry as we were relaxing after a hard day of work, and a plug for BrickCon in Seattle next weekend where almost all of us will get to see each other again!

Who is your LEGO family? Let us know in the comments below.

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