FX must enjoy the look they received of mutants on the small screen, because they have doubled-down on the pilot for the X-Men series LEGION and ordered an eight-episode run for the show to debut in early 2017.
With FARGO's Noah Hawley operating at LEGION's showrunner, the series is centered around Dan Stevens as David Haller, a man who has struggled with mental illness his whole life until he faces the realization that there may not be anything wrong with the voices he hears in his head at all… he may just be a mutant. After all, in the comics, Haller is the son of Professor Charles Xavier, who I'm sure you're altogether familiar with, so that should give you some foundation to operate with as far as Haller's abilities.
Aubrey Plaza, Jean Smart and Rachel Keller round out the main cast for television's first foray into the X-Men corner of the Marvel Universe. ABC and Netflix have already found varying degrees of success with other Marvel properties, but none of them have been mutant in nature. Television content has been the latest frontier comic book characters have been trying to conquer the past several years, already having found mostly solid footing in feature films, so can this concept work? FX original programming president Nick Grad strongly believes so.
We’ve come to expect excellence from Noah Hawley and with LEGION he has delivered another major creative achievement. Just as he did in reimagining FARGO, he is bringing an entirely new aesthetic and sensibility to the enormously popular and richly represented X-Men world. The pilot episode is stunning, driven by incredible performances from Dan Stevens, Aubrey Plaza, Jean Smart, Rachel Keller and the rest of the cast. We join our producing partners at Marvel in congratulating the creative team for what they’ve accomplished and are as excited as the fans for the premiere of LEGION’s first season.
Stunning and incredible, huh? Well, you know I'm at least in for the pilot next year with an open mind. Anything beyond that will have to be earned on merit, but, with Dan Stevens fronting this series, that has to be a good sign, right?