Previewing Legends

After the out of the box success of Homeland, producer Howard Gordon became a hot commodity, even if it came at the cost of the show that put him on the map (season two of Homeland was a step back in quality while season three fell off the cliff). Now the shows he was able to sell after that success are finally hitting the small screen. FX won a highly contested bidding war for Tyrant which premiered about a month ago to a resounding meh by critics. Another highly coveted property, Legends premieres tonight on TNT.

When I first saw the previews for Legends my first thought was, "Great, this will essentially be a prequel to Taken where we learn just how Liam Neeson got his very particular set of skills with Ned Stark as Neeson." Okay technically the show is based on the award winning spy novels by Robert Littell. In his iteration, Ned reattaches his head to his neck to play Martin Odum, a undercover agent for the FBI's Deep Cover Operations (or DCO). And like every good law enforcement story, he is the best at what he does and is a loose cannon.

This of course means he butts heads with his team leader Ali Larter (Varsity Blues with who he has a storied past with . Their commanding officer Steve Harris (Justified) is a little more tolerant to Stark because he does get the job done. Their team is rounded out by new to the team Tina Majorino (Veronica Mars) who provides tech support, Amber Valletta (Revenge) also pops up as Stark's ex-wife but unless their kid gets kidnapped by Albanians and sold into the sex trade, I do not really care about that storyline.

Legends stars off with Odum deep undercover, off the grid for six months as he infiltrates a militia group thought to bomb a Wichita building and looking for bigger targets. Though it looks like Legends will primarily be a procedural (and a much better one than the last deep cover show TNT put on, Dark Blue) do not expect every episode to wrap up in a nice bow with each case closed in an hours time. The second episode abruptly ends just as Martin morphs into Dante Auerbach, a "Lord of War" who hopes to locate a Russian refugee kidnapped by Russian seperitists to make him build a bomb somewhere in Los Angeles.

More interesting than the procedural aspect is when Odum is attacks by a homeless man that tells him that Martin Odum is also a Legend just like Dante and Lincoln Dittmann, the unemployed construction worker who joined the militia. As death surrounded people connected to the homeless man, it becomes clear that this is not just the rantings of a crazy person. The death also piques the interest of Morris Chestnut (Boyz in the Hood) another FBI agent in a different department tasked with investigating the homeless man's death .

Of the two new Gordan projects, Legends is the better watch because Sean Bean is a vastly more interesting lead and this show actually seems like it knows where it is going (being based on a book probably helps). This show also seems to have a small bit of a sence a humor whir is vastly missing in Gordan's other two shows, there is a scene tonight in a strip club which particularly made me chuckle. Though the long term enjoyment of Legends depends on just where they are going with what Martin learns from the homeless man. Gordan once said of Homeland that you can no longer shock audiences with plot twists, you can only shock them with when you do them. I am guessing we not learn Martin Odum's true identity until the end of the season. Hopefully Gordon shocks me with when that actually happens.

Legends airs Wednesdays at 9:00 on TNT.