LEGION
SEASON 1.

FX AND MARVEL TELEVISION

A PILOT IN OCTOBER 2015 AND A SERIES ORDER IN MAY 2016

FX ordered a pilot based on the Marvel Comics character in October 2015, with Noah Hawley, the creator of the Fargo series, writing it and serving as executive producer, and directing it too. On 31 May 2016 FX ordered the show to series, with eight episodes and a premiere expected in early 2017.

In a February 2017 interview, Hawley said FX approached him, and that he and the network’s John Landgraf talked about making something distinctly different from the other superhero shows on television. When the series was ordered, Marvel Television’s Jeph Loeb said he was pleased to see “our first partnership with FX go to series.”

WHERE IT SITS IN THE X-MEN WORLD

A PARALLEL UNIVERSE, WITH CHARLES XAVIER’S SON AT THE CENTRE

David Haller is a young mutant struggling with schizophrenia and psychiatric incarceration, the son of Professor Charles Xavier and Gabrielle Haller, a character created for the comics in 1985. The show follows a man long diagnosed with schizophrenia who starts to question whether what he hears and sees might be genuine after he meets a fellow patient.

The show is not set in the continuity of the X-Men films. In January 2016 Landgraf described it as taking place in “a parallel universe,” in which the US government is in the early days of knowing that mutants exist but the public is not. The films, by contrast, take place in a world where everyone is aware of mutants.

SOUND AND IMAGE

A DISTINCTIVE LOOK AND A SCORE THAT WARPS

Hawley said after the premiere that he wanted a distinctive visual style and a sense of humour, and that Kubrick and David Fincher were reference points for the way a camera can carry menace. He added a line that sums up the show’s approach to David’s point of view:

“If something feels real, maybe that’s as important as if it is real.”

Noah Hawley, February 2017

Composer Jeff Russo said he and Hawley talked early on about The Dark Side of the Moon as the soundtrack for schizophrenia from their youth. He also described writing a piece and then throwing it on a tape machine and playing it backwards. The pilot, shot over 21 days in Vancouver with an emphasis on practical effects, opens its montages with The Who’s “Happy Jack” and The Rolling Stones’ “She’s a Rainbow.”

DAVID, SYD AND THE REST

DAN STEVENS LEADS, WITH RACHEL KELLER AS SYD

Dan Stevens plays David, with Rachel Keller as Syd, Aubrey Plaza as Lenny and Jean Smart as Melanie, and Jeremie Harris, Amber Midthunder, Katie Aselton and Bill Irwin in supporting roles. In his February 2017 interview, Hawley said Stevens is “hands down, a leading man,” someone you could watch read the phone book.

Hawley knew Keller from Fargo, but says she still had to audition and that other actresses were up for Syd. In his words, “she just stole it.”

THE REWATCH

A RENEWAL BEFORE THE FINALE AND A 90% CRITICS SCORE

Season 1 aired from 8 February to 29 March 2017. The premiere drew 1.622 million viewers and the finale 0.812 million, and the season averaged a 0.45 rating among adults 18 to 49 and 950,000 viewers. FX renewed the show for a second season on 15 March 2017, two weeks before the finale. DVR viewing lifted the premiere to 3.59 million within a week.

Rotten Tomatoes lists a 90% critics’ score from 239 reviews and an 87% audience score. Its consensus calls the show “a masterfully surreal and brilliantly daring departure from traditional superhero conceits.” Metacritic gives the season 82 from 40 reviews, with 33 positive, seven mixed and none negative.

In the Marvel Marathon it appears in two guides. In Marvel TV shows in order it follows Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Slingshot and comes before Iron Fist Season 1. In X-Men movies in order it follows X-Men: Apocalypse and comes before No Good Deed. It is classed as an X-Men series rather than MCU, so it is not in the MCU guides.