The TV Column

TNT's Legends gives Bean a new starring venue

The new TNT spy thriller Legends stars (from left_ Morris Chestnut, Sean Bean and Ali Larter.

DESCRIPTION
Gallery Image
SHOWLegends
EPISODE #GALLERY
EPISODE TITLEGALLERY
PHOTOGRAPHERMARCO GROB
PERSONALITIESMORRIS CHESTNUT, ALI LARTER, SEAN BEAN
The new TNT spy thriller Legends stars (from left_ Morris Chestnut, Sean Bean and Ali Larter. DESCRIPTION Gallery Image SHOWLegends EPISODE #GALLERY EPISODE TITLEGALLERY PHOTOGRAPHERMARCO GROB PERSONALITIESMORRIS CHESTNUT, ALI LARTER, SEAN BEAN

British actor Sean Bean enjoys a cult-like fan following. They're all probably warming up their DVRs for TNT's new suspense thriller Legends.

The intense drama, based on the book of the same name by master spy novelist Robert Littell, debuts at 8 p.m. Wednesday. Bean plays Martin Odum, a veteran agent working for the FBI's Deep Cover Operations (DCO) division with the uncanny ability to transform himself into a different person for each assignment.

The characters are called "legends."

Odum's undercover legends include a Serbian extremist, a Scottish soccer club executive, a corrupt Chicago police officer, a British special forces colonel and a renowned computer hacker.

"The guy's a rock star," one admiring co-worker says.

"Sure, Odum was good," another scoffs, "but he should have been put out to pasture a long time ago."

Odum's genius (and his curse) is that he gets so deep into his characters that he's able to infiltrate his targets with ease. It's his inability to leave his characters behind once an assignment is over that haunts him and concerns his superiors.

The role of conflicted spy will be something different for recent Bean converts who are used to him on horseback and swinging a sword. Bean first gained fame playing Napoleonic Wars hero Richard Sharpe in a series of British TV dramas. But he's best known for playing the heroic (and doomed) Boromir in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the beloved (and beheaded) Ned Stark in Game of Thrones.

A hint at how different the role of Odum will be comes from a glance at the list of executive producers, whose backgrounds include Homeland, 24 and Fringe.

To complicate matters, Odum was already wrestling with his latest identity when a mysterious stranger followed him and suggested that Odum's entire life may be one big deep cover legend and that everything he thinks he knows is a lie.

Legends has a wealth of interesting, if formulaic, supporting characters.

Also starring are Ali Larter (Heroes) as the too-beautiful Crystal McGuire, a fellow operative who has a history with Odum; Morris Chestnut (American Horror Story, Nurse Jackie) as Tony Rice, a smart, quick-witted and charming DCO agent; Tina Majorino (Grey's Anatomy, True Blood) plays Maggie Harris, the requisite computer wizard and the newest member of the DCO team; and Steve Harris (The Practice, Awake) is Nelson Gates, the director of the DCO Task Force.

Also on board are Amber Valletta (Revenge) as Sonya Odum, Odum's ex-wife; and Mason Cook (The Lone Ranger) as Odum's pre-teen son, Aiden.

After his confrontation with the stranger, Odum begins to search for answers to his true identity. Meanwhile, he must also continue his primary job as an undercover operative.

In Wednesday's pilot, Odum returns to the FBI following an assignment infiltrating the Citizen's Army of Virginia (CAV), a domestic terrorist organization.

He tries to re-connect with his ex-wife and son, put his life back together and leave his recent legend behind. But when the CAV announces an eminent attack, Odum must go back undercover to stop them.

If there's any criticism, it's that Bean chews a bit much on the scenery in the pilot. Once all the characters are introduced and the premise established, the show settles down.

Legends is rated TV-14 DLSV for adult dialogue and language, sexual situations and violence. TNT has ordered 10 episodes.

Let's hope Bean survives. He has, after all, been killed off in many creative ways on film: hanged, buried alive, skewered with arrows, beheaded, quartered by horses, impaled on an anchor, frozen while naked, fatally shot (nine times), stabbed, bayonetted, drowned, smushed by a burning antenna (in the James Bond film GoldenEye) and, my favorite, pushed off a cliff by cows in 1990's The Field.

NEW ON A&E

Here's all the new reality stuff premiering this week on A&E.

Storage Wars, 8 and 8:30 p.m. today. The contrary Dave Hester returns. Yuuup!

Brandi & Jarrod: Married to the Job, 9 p.m. today. Storage Wars couple Brandi Passante and Jarrod Schulz star in a show about their lives together. In the opener, the couple finally decides to get hitched.

Cement Heads, 9:30 p.m. today. Yet another family reality show as cameras follow the antics of the Lougheeds and their New York concrete construction business WJL Enterprises.

Wahlburgers, 9 p.m. Wednesday. Season 2 premieres following the 8 p.m. season finale of Duck Dynasty and just before the 9:30 season finale of Big Smo. The new season has more of brothers Mark, Donnie and Paul Wahlberg and the family burger restaurant in Boston. There will be nine new episodes.

The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:

[email protected]

Style on 08/12/2014

Upcoming Events