STREAMING: LEGENDARY #0&|/14'
LEGENDARY
Series 1 (HBO Max on Foxtel soon)
There’s lots of colour and movement, sparkle and glitter, and tight costumes in this reality show treatment of the voguing houses of New York and their stunning runway routines. House members battle it out to avoid elimination and win Superior House honours.
Featuring mainly Black and Latino LGBTQ people, it’s made to order while we wait for the third season of Pose, whose production is coviddelayed.
As energetic as it is, Legendary suffers for being just a runway show without the back stories and characters that make Pose so compelling. But vogue is in vogue.
Dashaun Wesley makes his mark as the equivalent of Pray Tell and Dominique Jackson, unforgettable as Elektra from Pose’s House Of Abundance, turns up in episode 3 as a judge, and she’s gorgeously haughty. Kelly Osbourne is a guest judge on episode 5.
It’s all good fun, the costumes are breathtaking, the men are sexy but, yeah, we’re waiting for Pose season 3. One series, with a second in the works. (10 episodes)
over. RIP old friend.
Join the 7.4 million viewers (highest in three years) who watched the finale, then go back to the beginning and relive the joy. (201 episodes)
THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE
(FX/Netflix, iTunes)
Ryan Murphy’s second instalment of American Crime Story recounts the murder of Italian fashion icon Versace outside his Miami Beach mansion in 1997.
Killer Andrew Cunanan is played to chilling perfection by Darren Criss (seen recently in Murphy’s Hollywood). Beneath his boy-nextdoor charm is a clinical killer. He yearns for wealth, power and status but has not been born into privilege and lacks the natural smarts to achieve his goals. These perceived failures turn to a simmering bitterness, directed with fatal consequences towards others.
Murphy uses an unusual non-linear narrative structure, allowing us to skip around inside Cunanan’s timeline. It’s a tension-building device that illustrates his twisted psychology and leaves us on the edge of our seats each episode.
You’d also expect this to have its fair share of glamour, especially in Murphy’s hands, and it does. Penelope Cruz is marvellous as Versace’s younger sister, Donatella. Meanwhile, Ricky Martin, as Gianni’s lover Antonio D’Amico, gets his first nude scene en route to a three-way around the pool. (Ricky had to get the make-up department to cover a tattoo on his bum, which Cruz obligingly posted on Instagram!) A third American Crime Story series is due later this year: Impeachment, about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
(9 episodes)