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. Thursday opens overnight with a pair of crime thrillers, then threads Walker, Texas Ranger, The Six Million Dollar Man and Babylon 5 in and out of the daytime on the way to primetime. Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ Vietnam War drama Ambush headlines the evening at 9pm, followed by Sean Connery’s army-base thriller The Presidio. Full breakdown below.

Legend Schedule: Thursday 20 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Legend schedule for Thursday 20 August 2026, on Freeview 41.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Legend today

Overnight belongs to two crime thrillers. Machete opens at 12:50am, Robert Rodriguez’s 2010 actioner in which Danny Trejo’s betrayed mercenary turns on the men who hired him. 8 Million Ways to Die follows at 2:50am, Jeff Bridges as a former cop pulled into avenging a woman he had promised to protect. Legend goes off air just before 5am and stays dark until 5:30am, then runs teleshopping until programmes resume at 8am with Walker, Texas Ranger (series three, episode fourteen), Walker going undercover after Rangers discover a gang of wealthy teenagers targeting Dallas’s homeless.

The morning belongs to the channel’s regular daytime rotation: The Six Million Dollar Man at 9am (series five, episode thirteen) has Steve Austin landing from an orbital test flight to find six years have passed and a treason charge waiting for him, then Babylon 5 at 10am (series three, episode eight) sees Sheridan discover that the Shadows have struck a pact with a race everyone had taken for an ally, while the Nightwatch tightens its grip on the station. The Day the Earth Stopped fills 11am, a 2008 sci-fi feature in which robots threaten the planet unless humanity can prove its worth.

The afternoon belongs to two westerns. McLintock! airs at 12:50pm, John Wayne’s 1963 comedy western about a cattle baron fighting off a land grab and his estranged wife at the same time. The Shooting follows at 3:20pm, Jack Nicholson’s tense 1966 western about bounty hunters escorting a mysterious woman across the desert, a psychotic gunman joining them along the way. Star Trek: The Original Series takes 5pm, Kirk on trial for a crew member’s death, then The Six Million Dollar Man repeats at 6pm (series five, episode fourteen) to open the run into primetime, Steve up against a juggernaut built to level a city.

Legend tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Legend primetime line-up for tonight, Thursday 20 August 2026.

The Six Million Dollar Man — Legend, 6pm

Series five reaches episode fourteen, and Steve Austin has a properly mechanical problem this time: a near-indestructible juggernaut built to flatten an entire city, with only his bionic strength standing in the way.

Babylon 5 — Legend, 7pm

Episode nine of the third series turns the political screws hard. Earthforce declares martial law, riots break out on the station, and the widow of the last Centauri Emperor pays Londo an unwelcome visit. Sheridan’s grip on the station has rarely looked shakier.

Walker, Texas Ranger — Legend, 8pm

A job interview goes badly wrong for Alex in episode fifteen: she and the law firm’s owner are snatched on the way there, leaving Walker and Trivette to track them down before it turns nasty.

Ambush — Legend, 9pm

Jonathan Rhys Meyers leads a unit of US soldiers sent deep into Vietnam to recover intelligence that could shift the course of the war, in a 2023 drama also featuring Connor Paolo and Aaron Eckhart. The film runs a full two hours, so Legend has room to let it play out properly rather than trimming it to fit the slot.

The Presidio — Legend, 11:10pm

Sean Connery closes the night as an army provost drawn into a murder investigation on his own base, working alongside Mark Harmon’s San Francisco detective, once his subordinate, to unpick a diamond-smuggling racket that traces back to Vietnam veterans. It’s a 1988 thriller that trades mostly on the two leads’ friction rather than the mystery itself.

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, Thursday 20 August 2026, the 9pm film is Ambush (2023), starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers as part of a US unit recovering enemy intelligence during the Vietnam War, preceded by Babylon 5 at 7pm and Walker, Texas Ranger at 8pm. The Presidio (1988), with Sean Connery and Mark Harmon, closes the night at 11:10pm.

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.

Thursday follows the same formula: Machete and 8 Million Ways to Die overnight, McLintock! and The Shooting splitting the afternoon between them, then The Six Million Dollar Man, Babylon 5 and Walker, Texas Ranger carrying the schedule into a Vietnam War drama and an army-base 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