'Legends' goes deep undercover

Legends with Sean Bean (Sharpe's Rifles) is a show, that, like Josh Holloway's CBS series Intelligence last season, should work but doesn't due to a lack of imagination and daring.

Bean's Martin Odum is an FBI agent who is, in the immortal words of Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop 2, "deep, deep, deep, deep undercover."

He gets so lost in the alter egos he adopts to infiltrate criminal enterprises that he will slip into their speech patterns without realizing it. So lost that he signs a child support check to his wife with the name of the militia nut job he is pretending to be.

His identity is so splintered that as his handler (Cherry Hill native Ali Larter) points out, three out of four psychiatrists have declared him unfit for duty.

Bean is the latest in a long line of U.S. government agents on TV and in movies with a pronounced foreign accent (in his case, English). Where is Uncle Sam recruiting? The international terminal at LAX?

In addition to being a little too old for this role, Bean also seems nervous and self-conscious in it. Like he's trying too hard. And just for the record, affecting a stutter does not constitute acting.

The thing is, Bean is the most believable thing in Legends (Wednesday at 9 p.m. on TNT). The way these deep cover operatives talk their way out of tight corners, the split-second coincidences that save them in close calls, the utterly reckless chances they take - it's all preposterous.

Then there's Tina Majorino (Waterworld), who sports a Sonic the Hedgehog hairdo to play the bureau's computer whiz. With a few keystrokes, she can create an elaborate medical history, complete with CAT scans, a postdated trail of angry e-mails or a detailed credit check. (I think that last one is CTRL SHIFT C.)

The seeds for a couple of ongoing subplots are planted early, including the implication that Odum is one of a number of Manchurian candidates running around who have no clue of who they really are. And Morris Chestnut (The Best Man Holiday) plays a dogged agent who is convinced that there's something fishy about Odum.

Because Legends is essentially a procedural, not a serial, it's heavily dependent on guest stars like Zeljko Ivanek (The Bourne Legacy) in the pilot and David Meunier (Justified) in the second episode.

The show is off to a rocky start, but there's the chance each week that it might redeem itself because a well-tailored script could rectify most of its issues. That shouldn't be a problem. Just have Majorino hit CTRL ALT S.

Legends

9 p.m. Wednesday

on TNTEndText

215-854-4875 @daveondemand_tv