10. Legion (FX: 2017-2019)
It’s key to the appeal of Noah Hawley’s FX head trip Legion that you wouldn’t even know it was a Marvel show for a large chunk of its first episode. By the time the word “mutant” crops up, late into its first hour, it’s as much a surprise to the audience as it is to poor, confused, potentially omnipotent David Haller (Dan Stevens, who dances over, under, and across the “sympathetic protagonist” line throughout the show’s three seasons like he’s front and center in one of its many bizarre dance numbers). Like WandaVision, Legion was as interested—or more—in playing with TV formalism as it was in trying to tell a superhero story, though Hawley’s effort was far less focused, and far messier, than that Disney+ hit. But the sheer boldness of Legion’s ambitions ensured that there’s never been much like it on television, either inside or outside the Marvel machine. [William Hughes]
