SyFy show ‘Beast Legends’ offers up “realistic” monsters

Let’s get kraken: A hypothetical monster attacks in Beast Legends.

By Josh Bell

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2010 | 5:20 p.m.

The Details

Beast Legends

Syfy, Thursdays, 10 p.m.

The “sci” may be gone from its name, but Syfy has decided to get scientific with its latest ridiculous reality show, Beast Legends. Like the Spike TV series Deadliest Warrior, Beast Legends takes something inherently fantastical and over-the-top and attempts to apply real-world scientific principles to it. In this case, it’s the monsters of myth and legend, as the show assembles a team of dubious experts (a biologist, an anthropologist, a comic-book artist and an “adventurer”) to work out a pseudo-realistic idea of what creatures like dragons, griffins and krakens might look and behave like if they existed in real life.

To this end, the team travels all over the world to learn how these creatures might be similar to actual animals, and how the myths of their creation might have come to be. Meanwhile, an animator works in the “Beast Lab” to craft the team’s version of each episode’s creature. It’s all deeply silly, although there’s a chance you might learn some actual science, and the exuberance of the show’s stars can be infectious. Still, an hour is far more time than necessary to devote to each creature, and the final result is a short showcase film that looks like, well, a cheesy made-for-Syfy movie. Some things never change.