''Legends'' is an American

crime drama Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combin ...

television series which aired on

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...

from August 13, 2014 to December 28, 2015. Developed by

Howard Gordon Howard Gordon (born March 31, 1961) is an American television writer and producer. He is well known for his work on the Fox action series '' 24'' alongside the Showtime thriller ''Homeland'', which he co-developed with Alex Gansa and Gideon ...

, Jeffrey Nachmanoff, and Mark Bomback, the series is based on the 2005 book ''Legends: A Novel of Dissimulation'' written by Robert Littell. On December 4, 2014, TNT renewed ''Legends'' for a 10-episode second season, which premiered on November 2, 2015. On December 15, 2015, TNT canceled the series after two seasons and 20 episodes.

Premise

Martin Odum (Bean) is an

undercover To go "undercover" (that is, to go on an undercover operation) is to avoid detection by the object of one's observation, and especially to disguise one's own identity (or use an assumed identity) for the purposes of gaining the trust of an ind ...

FBI agent who changes himself into a different person for each case. A "mysterious stranger" (played by Billy Brown) causes him to question his sanity.

Cast

Season 1

Sean Bean Sean Bean (born Shaun Mark Bean on 17 April 1959) is an English actor. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Bean made his professional debut in a theatre production of ''Romeo and Juliet'' in 1983. Retaining his Yorkshire ac ...

as Martin Odum, an undercover agent working for the FBI's Division of Covert Operations (DCO) who struggles with his real identity outside of his legends. *

Ali Larter Alison Elizabeth Larter (born February 28, 1976) is an American actress and model. She portrayed fictional model Allegra Coleman in a 1996 ''Esquire'' magazine hoax and took on guest roles on several television shows in the 1990s. She made her ...

as Crystal McGuire, a fellow operative who has a brief romantic history with Martin. *

Morris Chestnut Morris Lamont Chestnut (born January 1, 1969) is an American actor. He first came to prominence for his role as Ricky in the 1991 film ''Boyz n the Hood''. He has appeared in feature films and on television series, including the starring role of ...

as Tony Rice, an FBI agent who is trying to uncover secrets he believes Martin is hiding. He recently became part of the DCO team and now helps Martin. * Tina Majorino as Maggie Harris, the rookie member of the DCO team and an expert data manipulator. * Steve Harris as Nelson Gates, director of the DCO task force. *

Amber Valletta Amber Evangeline Valletta (born February 9, 1974) is an American model and actress. She began her career as a fashion model, landing her first of sixteen American ''Vogue'' covers at the age of eighteen. During the 1990s, Valletta reached the st ...

as Sonya Odum, Martin's estranged wife. *

Mason Cook Mason Cook (born July 25, 2000) is an American actor. He played Cecil Wilson in the 2011 film '' Spy Kids: All the Time in the World''. From 2016 to 2019 he portrayed Ray DiMeo in the ABC sitcom '' Speechless''. Early life Cook is from Oklahom ...

as Aiden Odum, Martin's pre-teen son. *

Rob Mayes Rob Mayes is an American actor, musician, and model. He is best known for starring as the title character in the 2012 horror comedy film ''John Dies at the End'', as well as portraying Tommy Nutter in the short-lived comedy-drama television seri ...

as Troy Quinn, a member of the DCO team.

Season 2

*Sean Bean as Martin Odum *

Steve Kazee Steven Michael Kazee (born October 30, 1975) is an American actor and singer. He is best known for starring as Guy in the musical ''Once'' for which he was awarded the 2012 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. Kazee ...

as Curtis Ballard * Winter Ave Zoli as Gabrielle Miskova * Klára Issová as Ilyana Crawford * Aisling Franciosi as Kate Crawford * Kelly Overton as Nina Brenner *

Ralph Brown Ralph William John Brown (born 18 June 1957) is an English actor and writer, known for playing Danny the drug dealer in ''Withnail and I'', the security guard Aaron (a.k.a. "85") in ''Alien 3'', DJ Bob Silver in ''The Boat That Rocked'' aka ' ...

as Terrence Graves * Anna Rust as Khava Bazaeva *

as Tony Rice (guest star) * Nikola Đuričko as Tamir Zakayev *Gershwyn Eustache Jr as Simon Hardy * Adnan Hasković as General-President Arsanov *

Eric Godon Eric Godon (born 7 February 1959) is a Belgian character actor, director and writer. Recognisable by his burly appearance and deep voice, he is perhaps best known in English language circles, for his roles in ''In Bruges'', and '' The Missing'' ...

as older Ivanenko * Igor Skvarica as Beslan

Production

Music

The score of season 2 concludes with "Until We Go Down" by Ruelle, played during the climax of "The Legend of Alexei Volkov". Prior to this, the song was introduced to television as the opening theme of The Shannara Chronicles.

Episodes

Season 1 (2014)

Season 2 (2015)

Broadcast

Internationally, the series premiered in Australia on 11 November 2015 on FX. Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East & North Africa On the 4th of February 2016, BBC First HD started airing the first episode of the second season of the series on OSN (Orbit Showtime Network).

Critical reception

''Legends'' scored 59 out of 100 on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

based on 27 "mixed or average" reviews. The review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported a 56% critics rating with an average rating of 6/10 based on 32 reviews. The website consensus reads: "''Legends'' lacks originality, but derives watchability from

's fine central performance".

Development

With its second season, it was revealed ''Legends'' would be ‘’reimagined’’. The show would now focus on Bean's character's identity, with most of the original cast being replaced and the initial

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

setting was replaced for

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and continental Europe (

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

and

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

). British veteran TV-directors Jamie Payne (''

Indian Summers ''Indian Summers'' is a British drama television series that began airing on Channel 4 on 15 February 2015. The show details the events of summers spent at Simla, in the foothills of the Himalayas, by a group of the British governing and tradi ...

, The White Queen, The Hour'') and Alrick Riley ('' Hustle, Spooks/MI-5, CSI'') were added to the show. Ken Biller ('' Legend of the Seeker,

Perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...

'') became the new showrunner/executive producer/lead writer, and developed a brand new nonlinear storyline taking place in different countries and flashbacks to Bean's character's childhood at a British boarding school and scenes from

in 2001.

Promotion

To promote the series, TNT launched an intensive advertising campaign targeted at social media beginning at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con. Exploiting Sean Bean's reputation for varied and colorful on-screen deaths, the campaign centered around the hashtag #DontKillSeanBean, and included Bean's image on airport machinery and pillars, a poster covering multiple floors of a hotel adjoining the SDCC site, and widely distributed black T-shirts emblazoned with the hashtag in white. Producer Howard Gordon tweeted images of celebrities, including Kiefer Sutherland, '' Game of Thrones'' author

George R. R. Martin George Raymond Richard Martin (born George Raymond Martin; September 20, 1948), also known as GRRM, is an American novelist, screenwriter, television producer and short story writer. He is the author of the series of epic fantasy novels ''A Song ...

and Bean himself wearing the T-shirt. The ad campaign quickly went viral on social media and became the central focus of publicity done by Bean, including a parody by the website Funny or Die.

DVD release

References

External links

* * {{TNTShows 2014 American television series debuts 2015 American television series endings 2010s American crime drama television series American action television series English-language television shows Television series about the Federal Bureau of Investigation Television series by 20th Century Fox Television Television shows based on American novels Television shows set in Los Angeles TNT (American TV network) original programming