Legion

I'm giving this show ten out of ten because i'm genuinely thrilled every time i see a new episode. You *never* know whats gonna happen and the show keeps f*cking with your mind just enough to keep everything interesting but giving you exactly what you need to keep on waiting for more. Also, it's a freaking beautiful. I could watch it just because it's so perfectly shot. I get that everyone is not gonna like this, but for me this is pure bliss. Every time.

Legion is art, it is not a Sitcom, neither a show that you binge watch on Netflix, Legion is a like an exhibition in a museum, you cannot binge watch art. Every episode is unique and visually magnificient. It is LSD and psychedelic without any drugs. Actually you should not be stoned and watch Legion, your brain would explode.

The show has been so well planned with ideas, plots, and themes, spread over such a wide breadth of time, it's taken me several re-watches to fully grasp the masterpiece it is. Adding to that is how brilliant it is, with deep insight. It's a show for creators of shows: a shows' show. Of the hundreds of series I've watched, this is one of my top 3.

While part of the Marvel Universe, Legion is an odd-man-out, neither part of the big budget Disney cinematic universe or the Netflix version of the Marvel universe. It also has the best acting, writing and direction of any of them and a more mature approach. It's a cerebral, surreal sci-fi mutant show. If you are a comics fan, the fact of Chris Claremont & Bill Sienkiewicz involvement in this tells you almost all you need to know -- it successfully carries both of their styles onto a TV screen. Claremont wrote many of the most legendary story arcs for the X-Men. Sienkiwicz is a brilliant comic artist, emphasis on artist -- he often works with paint and mixed media to create comics that look like fine art. The writing and direction is complicated, non-linear, and accomplished, verging on avant garde. There is immense attention to detail and editing, artistically-framed scenes. The acting is a cut above other Marvel shows (although Cage gets an honorable mention) and they've gathered a cast that works great together. The psychological, Lynch-ian freaky edginess that Sienkiewicz infused in all his work is present. It's not perfect, it takes some risks that don't work (like season 2 ep.5 -- tedious and anti-climactic), but it is freaky & cool.

I enjoyed the first season of Legion. The first season had a tension to its style. There was this uncertainty to reality that kept me fascinated. Every silly, strange surreal moment was like a relief to that tension. By season 2 it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under the show's plot, and they're left dancing in midair with nothing to hold them up but a fun style, dance numbers, and psychedelic rambling.

I'm going to keep watching in hopes that it gets back on track. But if I'm going to just be watching a new song and dance routine in every episode, or another psychedelic gag because "wahaa-wehee-why-not?" then I'm gonna tune out.