Embarking on a new TV show is like dating someone new. There’s got to be some level of attraction to get the relationship off the ground—some sort of visual, intellectual, or emotional appeal. You have to be invested in what happens next, whether it’s a plot twist or sleeping over for the first time. The question is whether your investment pays off. Will the two of you come in hot, then cool into something more manageable, but less fiery (Mr. Robot)? Will your new beau be a cold, good-looking dud with nothing more to offer than sexual scars (Westworld)? Or will this be that rarest of things, the one where you go the distance, where every week is better than the one before, where eventually you can’t imagine your life without it?
The first few episodes of Legion feel like a fresh, strongly promising relationship. It’s based on an X-Men character, which triggers all sorts of preconceived notions, but the guy guiding the ship is Noah Hawley, who turned the Coen Brothers’Fargo into a richly layered, sustainable world for television. If anyone’s going to turn a Marvel character on his ear, it’s Hawley.