Legend TV Guide: Listings, Schedule & What’s On Legend Tonight

Legend is what the old Horror Channel turned into after its 2022 rebrand: still free to air, still fond of a monster, but now handing most of its evenings to sci-fi, fantasy and action cinema. Monday’s daytime opens with John Frankenheimer’s hijack thriller Black Sunday in the small hours, runs through Charlton Heston’s Earthquake mid-afternoon, then threads Walker, Texas Ranger, The Six Million Dollar Man and Babylon 5 in and out of the schedule on the way to primetime. The 9pm film headlines the evening. Full breakdown below.

Legend Schedule: Monday 17 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Legend schedule for Monday 17 August 2026, on Freeview 41.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Legend today

Overnight opens at 1:40am with Black Sunday, John Frankenheimer’s 1977 thriller in which a disgraced Israeli agent and a damaged Vietnam veteran are drawn into a terrorist scheme to attack the Super Bowl from the Goodyear blimp. Robert Shaw and Bruce Dern lead, with Marthe Keller as the plot’s third conspirator. Legend goes off air just after 4:30am and stays dark for an hour, then runs teleshopping from 5:30am until programmes proper resume at 8am with Walker, Texas Ranger, series three’s eleventh case.

The morning belongs to the channel’s regular daytime rotation: The Six Million Dollar Man at 9am (series five, episode ten), then Babylon 5 at 10am (series three, episode five) as Sheridan’s crew work through the slow build towards war with the Shadows. Sherlock Holmes fills 11am, a modest independent mystery with Ben Syder in the title role rather than any of the better-known screen Holmeses.

The afternoon turns to two studio classics. The War of the Worlds lands at 12:50pm, the 1953 George Pal production with Gene Barry and Les Tremayne facing down a Martian invasion of small-town California, still the version most disaster fans measure H.G. Wells adaptations against. Earthquake follows at 2:35pm, the 1974 Sensurround spectacle levelling Los Angeles around Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner and Genevieve Bujold. Star Trek: The Original Series takes 5pm, then The Six Million Dollar Man repeats at 6pm (series five, episode eleven) to open the run into primetime.

Legend tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Legend primetime line-up for tonight, Monday 17 August 2026.

The Six Million Dollar Man — Legend, 6pm

Series five’s eleventh episode opens the primetime run, Steve Austin back on OSI business with the bionic effects still doing most of the heavy lifting for a show now well over fifty years old.

Babylon 5 — Legend, 7pm

Series three, episode six carries the evening forward, deep into the stretch where Straczynski’s five-year arc stops being background noise and starts pulling the station toward open war with the Shadows.

Walker, Texas Ranger — Legend, 8pm

Series three’s twelfth case takes the 8pm hour, Cordell Walker working a small-town crime plot in the unhurried, procedural style that kept the show running for nine seasons.

Heist — Legend, 9pm

Tonight’s film is Heist, David Mamet’s 2001 caper written and directed with his usual clipped, needling dialogue. Gene Hackman plays an ageing thief pushed into one job too many by the fence Danny DeVito plays, and Rebecca Pidgeon gets one of the sharper roles as the crew member nobody quite trusts. It’s a smaller, talkier picture than the “heist” label suggests, and better for it.

Three Days of the Condor — Legend, 11:15pm

The night closes with Sydney Pollack’s 1975 conspiracy thriller. Robert Redford plays a low-level CIA researcher who comes back from lunch to find his entire office murdered, with no way of knowing which part of his own agency wants him dead next. Faye Dunaway plays the stranger he pulls into hiding with him, a role that gives the film’s paranoia somewhere to breathe outside the chase scenes.

What kind of shows are on Legend

Cult horror and its Horror Channel roots

Horror hasn’t been dropped, just demoted. Amicus and Hammer-adjacent anthologies still turn up, along with independent chillers and oddities like Horror Express, though these days they land in the afternoon or after midnight rather than at 9pm.

Sci-fi, fantasy and action films

Most evenings belong to genre cinema of a specific vintage: Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Dolph Lundgren, and further back, the fantasy adventures Ray Harryhausen animated. Film4 has the recent theatrical releases covered. Legend is working two or three decades earlier, and there is less competition for that ground than you would think.

Classic genre television

Very few channels still hand hours to vintage American genre TV. Legend does. The Twilight Zone runs as a nightly double bill, and Star Trek, Babylon 5 and The Six Million Dollar Man fill most weekday daytimes.

How to watch Legend

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find Legend across the main UK television platforms:

No subscription is required on any of them. Virgin Media and Freesat numbers can shift depending on your box and region, so trust your on-screen guide over this table if the two disagree.

Streaming online

Legend streams live and free through the WatchFreeUK app, available on Freeview Play, Freesat and YouView, and as a download on iOS, Android, Fire TV, Roku, and Samsung and LG smart TVs. No account or sign-up is required, which is more than can be said for most of its rivals. The catch-up section carries a selection of recently broadcast programmes, but licensing means not everything that airs stays available, and windows vary by title.

Legend Xtra and sister channels

Legend Xtra launched on 1 July 2022 as HorrorXtra and took its current name in a November 2023 refresh. Same broad mix of action, sci-fi and horror, free on Freeview channel 69, Sky 317, Virgin Media 171, Freesat 138 and Freely 51, with a +1 timeshift on Sky, Virgin Media and Freesat.

Both channels belong to the CBS AMC Networks UK Channels Partnership, a joint venture between Paramount Networks UK & Australia and AMC Networks International UK. True Crime and True Crime Xtra come from the same stable and sit alongside them in the WatchFreeUK app.

Frequently Asked Questions

What channel is Legend on Freeview?

Legend is on Freeview channel 41.

What’s on Legend tonight?

Tonight, Monday 17 August 2026, the 9pm film is Heist (2001), David Mamet’s caper thriller with Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito and Rebecca Pidgeon, preceded by Babylon 5 at 7pm and Walker, Texas Ranger at 8pm. Three Days of the Condor (1975) closes the night at 11:15pm.

Is Legend free to watch?

Yes, entirely. There are advert breaks during films and between programmes, but no subscription fee on any platform.

What was Legend called before?

It launched in 2004 as The Horror Channel, briefly became Zone Horror in 2006, reverted to Horror Channel in 2010, and became Legend on 30 June 2022.

Can I watch Legend online?

Yes, live and free through the WatchFreeUK app, no account needed.

Verdict

Legend is not chasing prestige and would look daft if it tried. What it gives instead is proper scheduled hours to material other free channels treat as filler. Horror Channel-era chillers hold the fringes of the schedule, but most nights now belong to the action cinema Van Damme and his contemporaries were making through the 1990s.

Monday follows the same formula: a 1970s hijack thriller overnight, two studio-era disaster and sci-fi pictures through the afternoon, then Walker, Texas Ranger and Babylon 5 repeats carrying the schedule into a proper Mamet caper and a Redford conspiracy thriller by way of a nightcap. Nobody is pretending this is a discovery channel. It knows exactly what it is.

Related: Film4 TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide | Films on TV This Week