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Author Topic: Legends season 2 review  (Read 3620 times)

Offline patch

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Legends season 2 review
« on: October 13, 2015, 05:24:00 AM »
Legends - The Legend of Dmitry Petrovich (Season Premiere) - Advance Preview

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Sean Bean is back on TNT’s Legends on Nov. 2, and having had the opportunity to the watch preview screeners for the first 3 episodes, I’ll say this - this is the show that I wish had premiered last season. The show’s producers apparently took to heart criticism of what was often a disjointed, tonally uneven first season and gave it a complete reboot.

 Gone are the case-of-the-week terrorism plots. Gone are the annoyingly too frequent midscene flashbacks. Gone is the FBI headquarters with the big screens and office politics. In fact, gone are almost all of the first-season cast, at least from what I’ve seen so far. All of these changes help to make this a much smoother, emotional storyline of a group of characters (with Bean’s character Martin Odum in the center, of course) tied together by events from 14 years prior. The common theme among their stories seems to be dealing with demons of the past.

 Whereas last season the show’s tone often flipped wildly from episode to episode, this season feels much more even. This is a very character-driven season with an ensemble feel, as we jump among several interconnected storylines and slowly learn clues to the central question of the show, which is who is Martin Odum … really. The question of Odum’s identity was central to season one too, but whereas last season the emphasis was more on the plot twists, this season, the more compelling angle is the emotional weight the characters carry.

 Odum, on the run in London after being framed for the murder of the FBI director, and learning he used to be British secret intelligence, is alone and searching the faces of every stranger, hoping that a face will trigger a memory. Helping him on his journey is Tony Rice (Morris Chestnut), a sympathetic friend from last season.

Running in tandem to the current day events is the storyline of events from 2001, when Odum was working a case for British MI6, during which he assumed the legend of a violent Russian criminal. Events of the past are interwoven with events of the present as we slowly learn more about all of the characters and the history they’ve struggled with for 14 years.

 Last season I was critical of the lack of the depth in the writing for much of the cast. I have no worries of that being an issue this season. The characterization is much richer and evenly distributed among what is impressing me as a strong supporting cast. Joining Bean and Chestnut are Winter Ave Zoli (Sons of Anarchy), Steve Kazee (Shameless), Aisling Franciosi (The Fall), Kelly Overton (True Blood), Klara Issova (Crossing Lines) and Ralph Brown (Agent Carter).

 Some people might find the pace a little slow. I don’t so far, but I like character-driven shows. With a well-written story, I find each episode pulls you in a little more.

 I’m guessing the big question on the minds of many people who skipped or dropped last season is do they need to watch season one to follow along with this season. In my opinion, no. There are a few plot points that tie back to last season: Odum’s memory has been scrambled by an accident and too many legends, he’s on the run from the FBI, he left a family behind, and he’s led a very colorful past. But all of that is addressed in the first episode. I don’t expect anyone starting new would have a problem following along. In fact, I’d recommend not watching season one if you haven’t already, as it may give you the wrong idea of what you should expect in season two.
 
http://www.spoilertv.com/2015/10/legends-legend-of-dmitry-petrovich.html

Offline Rebecca

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Re: Legends season 2 review
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2015, 06:01:55 AM »
Sounds very intriguing. I'm wondering how they make Sean look 15 years younger. The reviewer didn't comment on it, so I guess they managed.

Offline patch

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Re: Legends season 2 review
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2015, 06:34:54 AM »
Sounds very intriguing. I'm wondering how they make Sean look 15 years younger. The reviewer didn't comment on it, so I guess they managed.

Guess so,I can´t wait to see it.Only 20 days before season 2 starts. :snoopy:

Offline Rebecca

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Re: Legends season 2 review
« Reply #3 on: October 13, 2015, 07:00:45 AM »
I haven't worked out yet how I am going to see it in this country, but --- where there's a will, there's a way!

AND Frankenstein Chronicles looks terrific.  It's going to be a very nice autumn/winter.  :snoopy:

Offline patch

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Re: Legends season 2 review
« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2015, 12:09:43 AM »

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If next week is any barometer, TNT is about to become Spy TV — for better and for worse. For better, as my video review above says, is the almost totally revamped Legends. Back for a second season on November 2, the Sean Bean-starrer has gone darker and more desperate than its first much more standard procedural season (which I have to admit I liked).

Jettisoning the supporting cast except for now-Rosewood star Morris Chestnut, the setting and even much of the premise of its first season, Legends, based on the writings of Robert Littell, has taken Bean’s persona-jumping ex-FBI agent Martin Odum home to the UK. Under the radar and on the run, Odum is trying to find out who he really is and how he got to where he is amidst all the identities, known as legends, that he’s taken on over the years and the toll that’s taken. Eurospies, remnants of national and ethnic conflicts, plus a rather novel secondary plotline from 2000 of Bean as Russian gangster Dmitry Petrovich bring a very watchable depth and complexity to a show that previously just hinted at such aims.

Season 2 of Legends, which like the excellent second season of HBO’s The Leftovers is really a whole new show that you barely need the first season of, borrows the best tone from the Bean-starring ITV miniseries Extremely Dangerous, some of the grit and blood of 24: Live Another Day, and the psychological and religious dramas of Homeland (worth noting that Legends EP Howard Gordon holds the same credit on 24 and Homeland and has obviously brought their bare essentials to this show). The real strength though remains the never-to-be underestimated Bean. As his role in Ridley Scott’s The Martian and of course that first season of Game Of Thrones shows, he’s an actor with wide-ranging versatility.
http://deadline.com/2015/10/agent-x-legends-reviews-sharon-stone-sean-bean-tnt-1201597272/

Offline Rebecca

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Re: Legends season 2 review
« Reply #5 on: October 31, 2015, 03:34:01 AM »
TV Review: ‘Legends,’ Season 2 from Variety

Brian Lowry
TV Columnist
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TNT is billing the second season of “Legends” as having been “completely re-imagined,” and for once, that’s not just hyperbole. Having apparently recognized that Sean Bean was the program’s singular asset, the producers have developed a new, more ambitious structure that proceeds along parallel tracks, featuring two stories, one set in present-day London and the other unfolding 15 years earlier. Watching season one will help, but isn’t a prerequisite, and the whole enterprise suddenly has the darker feel of a premium cable drama, if not-fully-realized one, as opposed to a rather tepid procedural with Bean as the identity-shifting spook.

Adapted from a book, “Legends” derived its title from Bean’s central character, Martin Odum, an FBI agent who assumed different undercover identities while wrestling with uncomfortable questions about his past. Season one ended with Martin on the run for a murder he didn’t commit, while still unsure of his own history. “Lies and bull—t; that’s what my whole life’s become,” he mutters in the opening episode.

Yet that is, literally, just half the story, as the narrative, a bit like season one of “True Detective,” regularly flashes back to Prague 15 years ago. In that time frame, Bean is playing a ruthless Russian gangster named Dmitry Petrovich, whose activities have caught the attention of a young FBI agent (Steve Kazee), receiving reluctant assistance from a Czech cop (Winter Ave Zoli). Those characters’ stories also pick up again in the present day, slowly unspooling how their original investigation developed, while Odum’s suddenly public profile rekindles the earlier case.

Developed by the very busy Howard Gordon, and overseen by Ken Biller, who wrote the premiere, “Legends” now hews much more closely to the former’s “Homeland,” including an ongoing terrorism arc involving a teenage girl from Martin’s (or whoever he is) past. Although there are some holdovers – including a recurring role for Morris Chestnut, who subsequently moved on to a starring gig in Fox’s “Rosewood” – viewers are pretty quickly drawn into the two-tiered plot, in a manner that goes beyond just admiring Bean’s verbal calisthenics as he flits from one accent to the next.

A little more at the link.

Offline patch

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Re: Legends season 2 review
« Reply #6 on: October 31, 2015, 02:20:59 PM »
Review: TNT's 'Legends' reinvigorated in its second season



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I offer greetings, gratitude, and a hearty salute to the makers of TNT's Legends, who have busted the espionage thriller wide open for its second season.

Legends stars Sean Bean as a mysterious Jason Bourne-like figure who has two decades of experience as a covert operative but no clue to his real identity. Season Two premieres at 10 p.m. Monday.

I liked it last year, and the first three episodes of the new season excite me.

Viewers don't need to see the freshman season to enjoy the show, but it helps to know the basics.


Based on Robert Littell's novel, Legends debuted as a solid, above-average procedural about FBI agent Martin Odum (Bean), whose sense of self begins to disintegrate after serving as an undercover officer for nearly 10 years. Could Odum himself be a cover identity, a legend? He begins to ask too many questions and gets framed for the murder of the bureau's head honcho.

This year, the show goes global in a big way. Odum's in London in search of clues about a British spy named John Cameron - the person he thinks he may have been in real life.

He has flashbacks to an English boarding school, where he was routinely caned by a demanding history master. He must be Cameron! For real. Really.

Trouble is, MI6 officer Cameron also worked undercover, infiltrating an ugly assortment of criminal organizations. When it comes to Legends, reality is simply an endless chase filled with hand-to-hand combat, guns, spying, and melancholy ex-lovers.

 
As Odum's search progresses, we get flashbacks to one of his European legends, Prague gangster, drug trafficker, and assassin Dmitri Petrovich and a Chechen woman, Ilyana Crawford (Klara Issova). Was she Dmitri's lover? Did they have a daughter together? How come she's living in London now - drawing death benefit checks under Cameron's name?

Morris Chestnut returns as FBI agent Tony Rice, the only man who knows Odum is innocent. He pops up in London to help out his friend. A new character joins the circus, aging fed Curtis Ballard (Steve Kazee) who in 2001 was sent to Prague by the FBI to arrest Dmitri. He sees a current photo of Odum and heads out to Europe.

The reinvented Legends is a maddening puzzle. It's exhausting. But also thrilling. The drama's structure is a handful, flitting rapidly among three, four, five locations and time periods.

But somehow, at the end of each episode, the pieces fit together and make sense - only to raise new questions.

Fans of spy yarns will lap up every second.

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20151031_Review__TNT_s__Legends__reinvigorated_in_its_second_season.html

Offline patch

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Re: Legends season 2 review
« Reply #7 on: November 03, 2015, 06:48:26 AM »
'Legends' review: Is the TNT series worth a second look?

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  Bean's Odum, or whatever his name is, isn't just your standard-issue Conflicted Hero that you've seen on TV so many times in recent years. His plight may be the plight of nations, and even the plight of you and me: Finding solid ground in a complicated dangerous world where that is increasingly more difficult to find.

He's conflicted, alright. Who wouldn't be?

For that reason, this all-new, refocused "Legends" is a series that's earned a second look.
 
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/legends-review-is-the-tnt-series-worth-a-second-look-1.11047303



Legends season premiere review

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The new Legends is grittier, less hackneyed and more serialized than Season 1 had been, clearly modeled after Homeland, with which it shares its creator Howard Gordon.  The challenge of preserving some portion of the original plot, however, along with introducing two new storylines (one set mostly in present-day London, the other in 2001 Prague–plus flashbacks to a 1975 British public school), made for an opening hour that was disjointed and lacked a gripping center.

The present-day story mostly had Martin skulking around London as he attempted to avoid arrest for the murder of the FBI Director for which he’d been framed in Season 1, while still trying to track down his actual history with the help of DC cop Tony Rice (Morris Chestnut, now a guest star).  We also followed Kate Crawford (Aisling Franciosi), a teen who was attracted by the Chechen Muslim heritage her mother Ilyana (Klara Issova) kept hidden, and who was too dumb to realize she was being recruited by what is almost certainly a terrorist cell.  This will all turn out to tie into the Prague story (perhaps Kate will even be Martin’s daughter?), since Martin was there impersonating a Russian gangster while Ilyana was involved with a local leader at the time.

The only story that was really engaging here was the one about Kate, and that one seems to be going in an obvious direction.  The show, despite its overhaul, still isn’t giving Bean anything very interesting to do, either in the present or past tense, and none of the other new characters introduced in the premiere are terribly distinctive.  Director Jamie Payne made good use of actual European locations to give the show a much more cinematic look than Season 1 had, but the drama is still lacking.
 
http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/reviews/showbuzzdaily-season-premiere-review-legends.html



« Last Edit: November 03, 2015, 08:50:24 AM by patch »

Offline patch

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Re: Legends season 2 review
« Reply #8 on: September 06, 2019, 09:52:30 AM »
TNT's Legends Season 2 Gave The Show A Facelift - But Too Late To Save It
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TNT's Legends season 2 gave the thriller series a dramatic facelift, but sadly, it proved too late to save it. Sean Bean is an actor best known for his appearances in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, GoldenEye, and Game Of Thrones. Whether he has a leading role or a cameo, he always lends some gravitas to a project. That said, he's also become somewhat infamous for the disturbingly high mortality rate of his characters. Outside of rare exceptions like the Silent Hill movies or Troy, its usually a safe bet Bean won't make it to the end credits.

The actor himself has gotten in on this joke in recent years, including his appearance in video game Hitman 2 as an "undying" target. The hashtag #DontKillSeanBean was also used by TNT to promote their thriller series Legends. The show is based on Legends: A Novel of Dissimulation by Robert Littel, where Bean plays Martin Odum, an FBI agent who is the best at creating false identities dubbed "legends." Odum is about to inhabit one of these undercover identities so completely he practically transforms into another person, with examples include a stuttering construction worker who turns to terrorism. This takes something of a toll on his personal life, and he calls his own identity into question when he learns Odum may just be another legend too.

 The first season of Legends was a slick, entertaining procedural with a cool hook. It was produced by 24's Howard Gordon and just like that series, it was a tense thriller peppered with action and surprise twists. The show never really took off in the ratings, so when Legends season 2 was greenlit, it was given a big makeover. Cast members like Ali Larter and Morris Chestnut were dropped - though Chestnut later returned in a guest role - as was the procedural format of Odum taking on a new case each week.

Instead, Legends season 2 zeroed in on Martin Odum's past, with the story being split between present day, and 15 years in the past when he was he was undercover as a gangster called Dmitry Petrovich. The show became more of a moody thriller than an action drama, and Odum learns some shocking secrets about his true past. Legends season 2 was a tonal reboot that attempted to reinvent the show, and while critics complained about its complex structure - involving multiple timelines and flashbacks - it received better reviews than season one, especially thanks to Sean Bean's performance(s).

Unfortunately, while the aim was to improve Legends fortunes in the ratings, season 2 fared even worse. Those who enjoyed season 1's more action-based approach were turned off by the genre shift, and viewers who hadn't seen the first season didn't bother with season 2. It's a pity because while Legends season 2 had issues, it was more ambitious and took some interesting risks. It also ended on a cliffhanger which will now never be resolved - at least it ended with Sean Bean's character still alive though
https://screenrant.com/legends-season-2-story-reboot-cancellation-sean-bean-tnt/

Offline bratty1973

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Re: Legends season 2 review
« Reply #9 on: September 06, 2019, 07:46:54 PM »
Geez and I really loved the series :)