Legend (TV series)

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Legend

Genre	science fiction Western
Running time	42 minutes per episode
Creator(s)	Michael Piller Bill Dial
Starring	Richard Dean Anderson John de Lancie Mark Adair Rios Jarrad Paul
Country of origin	United States
Original channel	UPN
Original run	April 18, 1995–July 3, 1996
No. of episodes	12
IMDb profile

Legend was a science fiction Western television show that ran on UPN from April 18, 1995 until August 22, 1995, with one final re-airing of the pilot on July 3, 1996. It was Richard Dean Anderson's first major role after the successful MacGyver series, and also starred John de Lancie, best known for his role as "Q" in Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was shot on location in Mescal and Tucson, Arizona from January to June, 1995.

Anderson starred as Ernest Pratt, a gambling, womanizing, hard-drinking writer who created a dashing literary hero, Nicodemus Legend, the main character in a series of wildly imaginative dime novels set in the untamed West. Because Pratt created Legend in his own image, and wrote the novels in the first person, many readers believed that Pratt was Nicodemus Legend.

In the pilot episode, when Pratt learned that Nicodemus Legend has been impersonated and a warrant issued for his arrest, he travels to the scene of the incident to clear the name of his hero.

Pratt meets up with an impersonator and great admirer of his tales, the eccentric European scientist Janos Bartok and his assistant Huitzilopochtli Ramos. Bartok "borrowed" the Legend persona in order to help the townspeople of Sheridan. They enlist the reluctant Pratt to their cause, and show him how their scientific expertise and outlandish inventions (frequently based on ideas from Pratt's books) can bolster the impression that Pratt really is Nicodemus Legend. Bartok says:

Your celebrity has the power to give our enemies pause. My science can increase that reputation. And together, we will create the real Legend.

Pratt reluctantly agreed to assume the persona of his literary creation and to live as the image he created of an adventurous man, Together, they adventured throughout the West solving mysteries, capturing wrong-doers, and making scientific discoveries.

Twelve episodes were aired, including the 2-hour pilot episode. Despite critical praise, this program aired during UPN's first year of existence and after a change in network management, along with lower than expected ratings, the show was cancelled along with every other program aired on the UPN lineup, except for Star Trek: Voyager.