Legends (TV series)

Legends is an American crime drama television series that aired on TNT from August 13, 2014, to December 28, 2015. Developed by Howard Gordon, 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 is an undercover FBI agent who changes himself into a different person for each case. A "mysterious stranger" causes him to question his sanity.

Cast

Season 1

Sean Bean as Martin Odum, an undercover agent working for the FBI's Division of Covert Operations who struggles with his real identity outside of his legends.
Ali Larter as Crystal McGuire, a fellow operative who has a brief romantic history with Martin.
Morris Chestnut 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 as Sonya Odum, Martin's estranged wife.
Mason Cook as Aiden Odum, Martin's pre-teen son.
Rob Mayes as Troy Quinn, a member of the DCO team.
Season 2
Sean Bean as Martin Odum
Steve 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 as Terrence Graves
Anna Rust as Khava Bazaeva
Morris Chestnut as Tony Rice
Nikola Đuričko as Tamir Zakayev
Gershwyn Eustache Jr as Simon Hardy
Adnan Hasković as General-President Arsanov
Eric Godon as older Ivanenko
Igor Skvarica as Beslan
Jeremy Colton as Benson
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 November 11, 2015, on FX.
Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East & North Africa
On February 4, 2016, BBC First HD started airing the first episode of the second season of the series on OSN.

Critical reception

Legends scored 59 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 27 "mixed or average" reviews. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes 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 Sean Bean'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 setting was replaced for London and continental Europe. British veteran TV-directors Jamie Payne and Alrick Riley were added to the show. Ken Biller 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 Prague 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 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.