Legion season 1

Legion
Season 1
Promotional poster
Starring	Dan Stevens Rachel Keller Aubrey Plaza Bill Irwin Jeremie Harris Amber Midthunder Katie Aselton Jean Smart
No. of episodes	6
Release
Original network	FX
Original release	February 8, 2017 (2017-02-08) – present (present)
Season chronology

The first season of the American cable television series Legion is based on the Marvel Comics character David Haller / Legion, a mutant diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age who learns that his illness may actually be abilities. The season is connected to the X-Men film series, and is produced by FX Productions in association with Marvel Television with Noah Hawley serving as showrunner.

Dan Stevens stars as Haller, with Rachel Keller, Aubrey Plaza, Bill Irwin, Jeremie Harris, Amber Midthunder, Katie Aselton, and Jean Smart also starring in the season. FX ordered a pilot for Legion in October 2015, which Hawley wrote and directed. The show was picked up to series in May 2016. Filming took place in Vancouver, and on sets built in Burnaby. Hawley wanted to show Haller as an "unreliable narrator", including mixing 1960s design with modern-day elements, and filming the series through the title character's distorted view of reality.

The season premiered at the Pacific Design Center on January 26, 2017, ahead of its FX debut on February 8, with the season set to run for eight episodes. It received critical acclaim on release, with praise going to the cast, particularly Stevens, Hawley's visuals and design, and the nonlinear, unreliable nature of the storytelling. Several critics did note that the latter aspects would not be for all viewers, and some criticized this as the latest in a growing trend of television series with unreliable narratives. The series was renewed for a second season on March 15, 2017.

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Prod. code	U.S. viewers (millions)
1	"Chapter 1"	Noah Hawley	Noah Hawley	February 8, 2017 (2017-02-08)	XLN01001	1.62
2	"Chapter 2"	Michael Uppendahl	Noah Hawley	February 15, 2017 (2017-02-15)	XLN01002	1.13
3	"Chapter 3"	Michael Uppendahl	Peter Calloway	February 22, 2017 (2017-02-22)	XLN01003	1.04
4	"Chapter 4"	Larysa Kondracki	Nathaniel Halpern	March 1, 2017 (2017-03-01)	XLN01004	0.75
5	"Chapter 5"	Tim Mielants	Peter Calloway	March 8, 2017 (2017-03-08)	XLN01005	0.80
6	"Chapter 6"	Hiro Murai	Nathaniel Halpern	March 15, 2017 (2017-03-15)	XLN01006	0.73
7	"Chapter 7"	Dennie Gordon	Jennifer Yale	March 22, 2017 (2017-03-22)	TBA	N/A
8	"Chapter 8"	Michael Uppendahl	Noah Hawley	March 29, 2017 (2017-03-29)	TBA	N/A

Cast and characters

Main article: List of Legion characters

Main

• Dan Stevens as David Haller
• Rachel Keller as Sydney "Syd" Barrett
• Aubrey Plaza as Lenny Busker
• Bill Irwin as Cary Loudermilk
• Jeremie Harris as Ptonomy Wallace
• Amber Midthunder as Kerry Loudermilk
• Katie Aselton as Amy Haller
• Jean Smart as Melanie Bird

Recurring

• David Selby as Brubaker
• David Ferry as Dennis Kissinger
• Ellie Araiza as Philly
• Brad Mann as Rudy
• Quinton Boisclair as the Devil with the Yellow Eyes
• Mackenzie Gray as Walter / The Eye
• Scott Lawrence as Poole
• Devyn Dalton as the Angry Boy
• Jemaine Clement as Oliver Bird

Production

Development

In October 2015, FX ordered a pilot for Legion, with Marvel Television and FX Productions producing; FX Productions would handle the physical production. Hawley was set to write the pilot, and executive produce the series alongside X-Men film producers Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer, and Kinberg, Marvel Television executives Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory, and Hawley's Fargo collaborator John Cameron. Steve Blackman, Alan Fine, Stan Lee, Joe Quesada, and Karim Zreik also executive produce. By January 2016, FX President John Landgraf was confident that the series would be picked up by the network, probably for ten episodes; that May, FX ordered an eight-episode first season of Legion. Landgraf later explained that only eight episodes were ordered because FX wanted Hawley to run the series at his own pace rather than try and "pad" it out.

Writing

In January 2016, Landgraf said that the pilot and several further episodes had been written, and the season "might be [set] a few years in the past". That May, Hawley said the series was inspired by the works of David Lynch, and said that "the structure of a story should reflect the content of the story. If the story, as in this case, is about a guy who is either schizophrenic or he has these abilities, i.e., he doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not real, then the audience should have the same experience". Discussing the increasing popularity of unreliable narrators in television, Hawley said that he wanted to avoid making the audience think that the series is a puzzle that needs to be solved by solving the mysteries for them upfront—"We’re going to take a character out of confusion into clarity and an audience out of mystery into clarity."

Casting

The main cast for the season includes Dan Stevens as David Haller, Rachel Keller as Sydney "Syd" Barrett, Aubrey Plaza as Lenny Busker, Bill Irwin as Cary Loudermilk, Jeremie Harris as Ptonomy Wallace, Amber Midthunder as Kerry Loudermilk, Katie Aselton as Amy Haller, and Jean Smart as Melanie Bird. Hawley announced in October 2016 that Jemaine Clement would be joining the series in what was described as "a multi-episode arc", later revealed to be portraying Oliver Bird, Melanie's husband. Other recurring actors in the show include David Selby as Brubaker, a member of Division 3; David Ferry as psychiatrist Dennis Kissinger; Ellie Araiza as Haller's girlfriend Philly; Brad Mann as mutant fighter Rudy; Quinton Boisclair as the Devil with the Yellow Eyes; Mackenzie Gray as Walter / The Eye; Scott Lawrence as psychiatrist Poole; and Devyn Dalton as the Angry Boy, a manifestation of the title character from the book The World's Angriest Boy in the World.

Design

Production designer Michael Wylie, who had previously worked on Marvel Television's Agent Carter, found designing for Legion to have much more flexibility than other series, noting that "a lot of times in TV shows, things have to be in continuity", but not so much for Legion. To try avoid dating the series, elements such as cars are rarely shown, and when they are seen there is a mixture of modern-day cars and vehicles from the 60s. Clothing is also a mixture of present-day and past fashions, emulating a prediction of the future from the 60s or 70s. Wylie explained that "story is being told from an unreliable narrator so we can do whatever we want." Visual inspiration was taken from the works of Stanley Kubrick, including A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Several props from the X-Men films were brought to Vancouver for use in the series, from storage in the US and Montreal, where the films are produced. Wylie said he was free to use these as he wished: "You don’t have to follow any rules. If you come up with something, you can do something because you think it’s cool, or that it’s pretty or it manipulates somebody."

Filming

Filming for the pilot began in March, in Vancouver, with Hawley directing and Dana Gonzales serving as cinematographer. With the series order, the rest of the first season were set to start filming in August 2016, also in Vancouver. In addition to Gonzales, Craig Wrobleski also serves as a cinematographer on the series. Both Ganzales and Wrobleski previously worked with Hawley on Fargo. Gonzales referenced Kubrick, Malick, and Paolo Sorrentino as influences on the filming style of the show, and noted that they were able to use a 9.8 Kinoptik camera lens, which Kubrick used to film A Clockwork Orange. The camera also changes aspect ratio to reflect Haller's state of mind, "going narrower when he feels boxed in by the nefarious forces pursuing him."

The pilot featured a large amount of in-camera effects rather than just CGI, such as "upside-down day, so you're not just setting up a camera with two people talking. We're trying to tell the story with the camera and the visuals ... we're ambitious." Hawley admitted that it would be a challenge for the series' directors to maintain the quality of visuals and effects with much less time to film each episode than was allocated for the pilot; Hawley had 21 days to film the pilot, but the subsequent episodes were only scheduled 8 days of filming each. Some of these shoots ultimately had to be extended to 10 or 11 days filming to meet Hawley's vision, which he said were "not good calls to have but what are you going to do? It’s a huge show." Keller felt that the series' episodes were notably different from one another, calling the show a uniquely "director-driven show. It's almost like the episode prior doesn't set you up for how the next episode is going to go. It will connect. It will. But you have to experience it."

On filming in Vancouver, Hawley noted that many US television series are filmed there, and it "offers an amazing array of looks and feels and, obviously, a great crew base and everything." Sets for the series were constructed in a former supermarket warehouse in Burnaby, just southeast of Vancouver, including a "23,000-square-foot set" for the interior of Clockworks Mental Hospital. Wylie called this the most complicated set, and felt "trying to make a hospital feel fun is a perfect challenge." Exteriors were shot at the University of British Columbia "where they have a lot of that sixties and seventies brutalist architecture" that is often seen in government and institutional buildings.

Music

Composer Jeff Russo felt that "the important part is allowing the humanity of these characters to really shine through", and in addition to an orchestra he used "a bunch of old synthesizers" and "a lot of interesting sound design" to represent the "otherworldly" elements of the series. With the season's premiere, Russo reiterated that the "through-line" of the series is the relationship between Haller and Barrett, and said that a love story "lends itself to musical moments. It allows it to underscore the character."

A soundtrack album for the season was released digitally on February 24, 2017, on Amazon.com. A CD release is set to follow on March 24, from Lakeshore Records, with a vinyl release also planned for the album. All music by Jeff Russo:

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Young David"
2.	"David in Clockworks"
3.	"174 Hours"
4.	"Seeing Things Hearing Things"
5.	"Run"
6.	"David"
7.	"The Shift and Cascade"
8.	"The Caper 2"
9.	"Legion Main Title"
10.	"87 Days"
11.	"Open"
12.	"Almost Legion"
13.	"Levitate"
14.	"Clockworks"
15.	"Chaos and Madness"
16.	"David and Syd"
17.	"Choir and Crickets"
18.	"Tea and Memory"
19.	"David Redux"
20.	"Darkness (Full Suite)"

Shared universe connections

In August 2016, Singer said that Legion had been designed to fit into the X-Men universe, but also to stand alone, so "you wouldn't have to label" the relationship between the series and the films. Hawley explained that because the series is depicting the title character's "subjective reality", it would not have to address any connections to the films straight away, noting that his series Fargo, which is connected to the 1996 film of the same name, at first "had to stand on its own feet" before exploring those connections more; "We have to earn the right to be part of this universe. My hope is we create something so strong that the people in the movie studio call and say they would be foolish enough not to connect these things." He did state that "you can't tell this story without" acknowledging that Legion is the son of Charles Xavier, who appears in the films.

Release

Broadcast

Legion premiered on FX on February 8, 2017. In January 2016, Landgraf had said that he anticipated the series "would go on air" later that year, but that May, FX announced that the series would actually debut in early 2017. The next month, Marvel announced that Fox channels in over 125 countries had picked up their respective airing rights for the series, and that it would be aired using a "day-and-date" delivery system so that viewers around the world get the series on the same day. Fox Networks Group's sales division would also handle distribution of the series to third parties.

Marketing

At San Diego Comic-Con 2016, Marvel's Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada debuted the first trailer for Legion at his "Cup O'Joe" panel. Response to the trailer was positive, particularly its unique tone and visuals. Jacob Kastrenakes of The Verge described the trailer as eclectic, while Daniel Kreps of Rolling Stone called it manic. Kelly West at Cinema Blend called the trailer "all kinds of weird... in a good way", and positively compared it to a mix of Fight Club, Mr. Robot, and The Matrix. At New York Comic-Con later that year, the series held its own panel. Hawley, Loeb, Donner, and the series' main cast members were present to promote the series and screen the first half of the pilot episode. In response to the footage, Deadline.com's Dominic Patten said "we know three things for sure about Legion, it looks great, has top notch pacing and a killer choice of music." Nick Romano, recapping the panel for Entertainment Weekly, called the footage "just as chaotic as the mind of David Haller" and "almost Kubrickian in nature". "Based on what was screened," Romano added, "Legion already seems to have an erratic, hallucinatory tone and style that we’ve never seen before from a superhero TV series."

The series premiered at a red carpet event on January 26, 2017, in West Hollywood's Pacific Design Center. It was received enthusiastically by the audience, including Legion creator Bill Sienkiewicz. This was followed by an "immersive art exhibit" beginning the next day, named Legion Where?House. Running for three days in a Williamsburg warehouse, the free-to-the-public exhibit features unique artwork from Michael Murphy, Clemens Behr, Kumi Yamashita, and David Flores that looks to "challenge audiences’ minds": Murphy's sculpture, Suspension of Disbelief, features "hundreds of colorful utilitarian objects" hung from the ceiling that, when looked at from a specific spot, form the word "Legion"; Behr's installation, Doors, is "the corridor of a hospital that’s been blown apart", allowing visitors to walk "between fragments of rooms and doorways strewn with mirror fragments"; Yamashita created Lovers, silhouettes of David Haller and Syd Barrett that are separated by "thin pieces of board, preventing the figures from clasping hands", which "greets visitors at the show’s entrance"; and Flores' mural Legion, "being used as the key art for the show, depicts a fiery explosion emanating from David’s mind." Limited edition posters inspired by this artwork will be made available at 56 comic book stores across the US. The exhibit also includes a multimedia installation inspired by the series.

Additionally, five augmented reality (AR) murals were displayed as promotion for the series, one each in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Visitors to these sites could use the Blippar AR app to make the artwork "come to life", displaying "the power of David Haller’s mind". In London, the Century Club will host a cocktail bar on February 8 named The Mutant Lounge. Taking place over two, two-hour sessions, the event will be staffed by "mutants with superpowers", will be decorated to "recreate the world depicted in the series", and will be serving themed cocktails and canapes. Visitors will be able to watch the series' premiere before its debut in the UK, and "will also be treated to a number of surprises throughout the evening, with the aim of demonstrating that not everything is as it seems."

Reception

Ratings

Viewership and ratings per episode of Legion season 1

No.	Title	Air date	Rating/share (18–49)	Viewers (millions)	DVR (18–49)	DVR viewers (millions)	Total (18–49)	Total viewers (millions)
1	"Chapter 1"	February 8, 2017	0.7	1.62	0.9	1.97	1.6	3.59
2	"Chapter 2"	February 15, 2017	0.5	1.13	0.8	1.78	1.3	2.91
3	"Chapter 3"	February 22, 2017	0.5	1.04	0.7	1.45	1.2	2.49
4	"Chapter 4"	March 1, 2017	0.4	0.75	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
5	"Chapter 5"	March 8, 2017	0.4	0.80	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
6	"Chapter 6"	March 15, 2017	0.3	0.73	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
7	"Chapter 7"	March 22, 2017	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
8	"Chapter 8"	March 29, 2017	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 93% approval rating with an average rating of 8.43/10 based on 58 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Bold, intelligent, and visually arresting, Legion is a masterfully surreal and brilliantly daring departure from traditional superhero conceits." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 82 out of 100 based on 40 critics, indicating what the website considers to be "universal acclaim".

James Poniewozik of The New York Times called the series "sharply written, but its visual panache is the big surprise", praising the "groovy, 1960s-70s retro-futuristic look" and soundtrack. He concluded, "You will not always know what's real in Legion, but the thrills are 100 percent genuine." Writing for The Guardian, Emily Zemler said that Hawley's representation of Haller's mind and perspective on reality was "the strength of Legion ... It’s disjointed on purpose, and there’s something deeply satisfying in the edge that gives the viewer. It’s not a comfortable watch, but it doesn’t need to be." Zemler did warn that the series may be disorienting for viewers with no context or knowledge of the character's comic origins. David Bianco, reviewing the early episodes of the series for USA Today, found the show's villains to be its weakest link, praising Stevens, Keller, and Smart, and saying that though it "may initially seem confusing and frustrating... if any show deserves your patience, it’s Legion. Rewards await."

Dan Stevens was praised for his performance as David Haller, the title role.

In his review on RogerEbert.com, Brian Tallerico praised the series for its focus on character, especially by having none of its characters "defined by their powers or their relation to a villain". He felt that the performances of Stevens and Keller were especially strong, but did think that the series took itself too seriously at times, lacking some of the humor usually found in the works of Hawley and Marvel. David Wiegand for the San Francisco Chronicle called Legion the best series of the new year, and praised the "resolutely novelistic" approach from Hawley. Wiegand felt, "It would be facile to say Legion is a comic book show for people who don’t like comic book shows. At the same time, it does have a far more complex thematic and psychological structure than most comic book shows." He praised the cast, especially Stevens, who he said "simply does the best work of his career". IndieWire's Ben Travers praised Legion as "the most intricate, intimate superhero story to date", highlighting its focus on "an emotional journey for our leading lad", the central love story that turns the show "from a 12 Monkeys mind-fuck to a Romeo & Juliet romance at the drop of a hat", and its cast, particularly Smart.

At Variety, Maureen Ryan stated that Stevens' performance "is the glue that keeps Legion from flying apart", and the relationship between Haller and Barrett provides "moments of solace in a viewing experience that can otherwise be exceptionally intense." After the first three episodes, Ryan said that "the challenge of Legion will be to make David’s quest for wholeness more than the sum of its flashy and often captivating parts. But the humane core of the drama offers a reason to hope for the best." Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter said, "It might seem weird to have a Marvel show on FX, or to have it star that upper-crust Brit from Downton Abbey, filtered through the creator of Fargo, but somehow it all works." He praised Stevens performance, and Hawley's "optical hijinks" even after the first episode, where the story starts to become more clear.

Writing for Slate, Sam Adams stated that Hawley's intention to deconstruct the superhero genre "doesn’t seem like an accurate description of what the series is doing, or even trying to do", calling the series "a well-appointed show: It’s handsomely shot, and smartly acted, and ingeniously constructed enough to suggest there’s something mind-blowing lurking at its center ... [but] it starts to feel like a show with a Rubik’s cube where its heart should be." David Sims at The Atlantic called Legion "the latest, and most indulgent, entrant" in a trend of "shows that rely far less on plot than on mood, that are crammed with stunning visuals and frustrating, circular dialogue." Sims praised the series' style and Stevens' performance, but felt that "it tries so hard to dazzle that it forgets to tell a meaningful story." The Washington Post's Hank Stuever also questioned the need for another series where "viewers find themselves trapped in the center of a tortured mind", asking, "Must it always be the viewer’s job to pick up the pieces?"

Accolades

Year	Award	Category	Recipient	Result	Ref.
2017	TVLine's Performer of the Week	Performance in "Chapter 6"	Aubrey Plaza	Won
	Saturn Awards	Best Superhero Adaptation Television Series	Legion	Pending

External links

• Official website
• Legion season 1 at IMDb