It was a particularly crowded field at Netflix last week, with the holdover hit Man on Fire fighting several new releases for the attention of viewers. Man on Fire has held the top spot on Netflix for two weeks in a row, despite competition from the British true-crime series Should I Marry a Murderer?, the second seasons of Worst Ex Ever and Running Point, and the critically acclaimed limited series Lord of the Flies. This is not counting overseas titles such as My Royal Nemesis and Straight to Hell. However, one show came out of nowhere to claim a spot in the top five.
The six-episode series is a crime drama set in the 1990s and based on real events. It was created by Neil Forsyth. He’s best known for the Paramount+ series The Gold, starring Hugh Bonneville and Jack Lowden, and the Scottish detective series Guilt. His new Netflix series stars Steve Coogan as a customs officer who assembles a ragtag team of misfits to investigate the influx of deadly drugs into the United Kingdom, at the direct orders of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. His team infiltrates two crime rings by going undercover. The show combines the darkly humorous shenanigans of Apple TV’s hit espionage series Slow Horses with the grounded crime drama of Netflix’s own Narcos.
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We’re talking, of course, about Legends. The series also features Tom Burke, best known for playing the titular character in the C.B. Strike series, based on the novels J.K. Rowling wrote under a pseudonym. He also played a memorable role in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga a couple of years ago. Burke is joined by Aml Ameen and Hayley Squires in the show, which currently holds a “Certified Fresh” 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The aggregator website’s consensus reads, “Legends gets the basics of the crime genre right, bringing in clear-cut drama to a daringly real tale and imbuing its narrative with the right balance of respect and spectacle.”
In her review, Collider’s Jessica Toomer wrote that Legends will probably be “the most watchable crime drama Netflix puts out this year.” The show has certainly caught the attention of audiences; according to FlixPatrol, it remained one of Netflix’s most-watched titles globally as it entered its second week of release after raking in 3.4 million views in week one.