After not being particularly thrilled with last nights results it will be good to have a nice relaxing reward challenge tonight. I’m not ready for another elimination just yet.
Before we get in to the building we have to stand around and have a bit of a chat.
Hamish confirms that this is not an elimination today. Up for grabs is immunity.
The teams are lead to the back of the room to reveal today’s challenge. It’s basically the train challenge from episode 1. Look 2020 was a tough year, the people coming up with challenges may have been stuck interstate or something.
The challenge is officially called “Hero’s Quest”. Each team will take one section of the treasure map and build something on it that the hero will travel through.
Each of the six segments are themed, which I guess does make this a little bit different.
The 6 themes are: Desert, Caribbean, Jungle, Frozen lands, Mediterranean and Highlands.
Brickman is looking for epic and sense of adventure. So story is going to be a big factor today.
Teams have 12 hours for this build.
It’s first in best dressed for each segment of the map. It’s very polite.
Gabby and Ryan having to wait 5 minutes are left with the Highlands that nobody else wanted.
Jess and Anthony are doing a Kraken. This makes sense for the Caribbean section they have. If they can get the mechanism working the way they want it could be awesome.
Gabby and Ryan get to work on the Highlands and they don’t seem super thrilled. They seem to be leaning Scottish in their thinking. They are doing Loch Ness monster.
They are splitting the build with Ryan working exclusively on the powering of their build.
Sarah and Fleur are doing a giant snow witch bursting out of the ice (they got the frozen lands obviously). This seems interesting because yesterday they said how much they prefer working in minifigure scale, which they could do here but aren’t.
Sarah says she does love doing big faces.
Brickman stops by to tell them how to make their build better. I hope this is just editing and the other teams get the same level of tips.
Scott and Owen have the Mediterranean section and are going with a minotaur. Scott is doing a lot of the main detailing while Owen works on some very technical mechanism for their build.
Michael and Harrison have jungle and they are doing a tiger temple. They seem to be hitting a lot of the tropes which is a wise idea.
They need to nail the tiger head to get the win.
Gus and David are coming off a bit of a streak. They are doing the desert build and going with Anubis. I think doing Egyptian was the obvious and probably only sensible choice.
Their mechanism seems very technical and I am confused just looking at it. If I ever go on LEGO Masters I think I need to do an engineering degree first.
Jordie is back to try and keep the brickpit clean. It’s a losing battle.
Michael and Harrison’s tiger has had had a big night and has some seriously bloodshot eyes. Hamish tries to help.
Jess and Anthony seem pretty happy with their build so far. They’ve got movement!
Lots of great detailing in Scott and Owen’s build. The don’t seem to be going as big. I am not sure how that is going to go for them in the end. They are still having technical problems though.
The Highlands are looking good so far. Their motion is really good with the biting action. Gabby is not happy with the gaping hole at the back of their model that Ryan says is necessary.
Luckily Gabby is able to come up with an easy fix.
Gus and David seem to be a bit behind. I am as confused as Hamish as Gus goes through their mechanism. The end result looks great though.
With two hours left they are not leaving themselves a lot of time to hide all of the Power Functions.
Michael and Harrison don’t have a big movement. They have fixed their eyes and it’s looking good. Brickman stops by and tells them they need to do the bottom jaw of their tiger. This means if they don’t do the bottom jaw they have no chance of winning.
Jess and Anthony are having eye problems too. Their Kraken is looking a little goofy.
The ice witch is coming along but seems to be a bit behind where I think you’d want it with 2 hours left.
Brickman has said they need a round hat. I don’t think an ice witch needs a round hat but what do I know?
The Minotaur is looking good and working the way they want it to work.
Brickman comes by to undermine their build and demand something else. They are going to add a giant cyclops. This seems like a terrible idea, but they don’t really have a choice.
I’m getting a bit frustrated with the whole single judge demands teams do something thing. Is that coming through in these recaps? If Hamish suggests something you can ignore it but the teams know that anything Brickman asks for he is expecting to see it.
Scott and Owen even call this out.
Brickman is demanding more! LEAVE THEM ALONE BRICKMAN.
Anubis is looking awesome. Great use of colour to stand out in the desert.
Gabby and Ryan get to work on the detailing of their build. They’ve come up with a decent story.
Jess and Anthony have run out of time for a lot of additional detailing. That could be the thing that means they don’t win it.
Michael and Harrison’s tiger gets the bottom jaw. It’s looking great.
Fleur and Sarah are having hat issues. They aren’t going to have a good hat and so they obviously won’t win it.
The cyclops looks amazing. I think it actually completely overshadows the minotaur.
It’s time to check out the final builds… but first we strap a GoPro to a train cart and send it through the combined build.
Gabby and Ryan
This is pretty great. Nice clear story, great use of Power Functions. I think they’ve done really well with what was probably the toughest of the 6 segments.
Scott and Owen
What I love about this one is actually the smaller details. The aqueduct is great and it feels like ancient Rome. The minotaur they spent so long working on is completely overshadowed by the cyclops. I think it could have stood without that. Scott made a minifigure peeing in the bathhouse. I love it.
I am shocked that Brickman loves the cyclops he demanded they add.
David and Gus
Anubis looks incredible. The overall shape, the use of colour and the interesting mechanism. There is also enough story elements. Brickman nit-picks the cohesiveness of it. Didn’t have an issue with a cyclops randomly stuck on the side of Scott and Owens build.
Jess and Anthony
I think Carribean and Kraken make perfect sense together and I think this is a great build. The fine detailing probably isn’t as interesting as the other builds but overall it’s great. The mechanism is good too but maybe could have been a bit floppier. The tenticle seems a bit stiff.
Sarah and Fleur
I don’t like this at all. It’s a decent character build but it’s just one big character. Most of the other teams did something big, with Power Functions AND minifigure scale detailing and story. They’ve just got a few minifigures running away.
Michael and Harrison
I really like this one. The tiger head looks great. I do kind of question why there is a giant tiger head mounted to the top of the temple. Did they decapitate a giant tiger? Is it a painted statue?
There are plenty of the quest tropes included which add to the overall story telling of it.
I agree that this one didn’t need Power Functions.
Brickman is going to give the win to the Cyclops that he wanted built. I’m certain of it.
Let’s find out the results…
Today’s top two teams are Michael and Harrison, and Scott and Owen.
Michael and Harrison take it out! Ok I was wrong. I am happy with this result. You can’t go wrong by hitting the tropes.
Michael and Harrison get they day off tomorrow.
Maybe by series 8 C9 will realise the spoiler for the next episode probably shouldn’t be directly before the judging. I’m starting to expect the promo for the final to show the winning team lifting the trophy.
Something that has bugged me for a while, which really showed through this episode with regards to Scott and Owen’s build, is how much Brickman pushes size at every opportunity. Making something massive doesn’t automatically make it a good build!
Im getting bored of the same team winning every elimination. What’s point in watching. And putting spoilers in the next week bit is kinda tedious. Why watch the episode when you already know what’s happened. So far not impressed with season 3