Elizabeth Hurley is dead. Well, at least in the name of great reality television, especially Channel 4’s hilarious new series “The Monitoring.”
Rounding out her first summer of love with her painful new boyfriend Billy Ray Cyrus, Lisa Hurley pretty much returns to the show from the geniuses behind the traitors—only somehow it’s campier and more panto at once.
Hurley is “the deceased,” an enigmatic deceased millionaire who has written his entire family out of his will, leaving his fortune to 13 strangers who must compete in a series of challenges to take home their share of the inheritance.
Of course, there is a twist.
At the end of each challenge, players must nominate themselves for the one they believe deserves the most cash.
Those who make their case to the jury then make up the contestants who agree that they didn’t work that hard – who decide that the winner of the prize was awarded that day.
This begs the question: what does it really take to get what you deserve in life?
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Perhaps inheritance could not be more relevant at a time when the gap between rich and poor continues to widen and the rights to wealth, land, and state are felt.
The Traitors revived reality TV when it launched in 2022 and is now arguably the biggest show in Britain. But it also brought a crisis: every production company in the world is trying to recreate that magic.
If a new show isn’t desperate enough to be called “the new traitors,” it’s “the new race around the world,” or in the case of the recent BBC disaster Destination X, both.
No one has come close. And no one likely will.
Legacy is the first time a reality series doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be something else.
It’s actually inspired by the long-forgotten ITV flop, Split, presented by Andrew Castle until it was axed after just two series. Players answered general knowledge questions to create a prize pot and then had to decide among themselves the fairest way to split it.
Inheritance takes this idea of justice and runs with it – all the way to a ridiculously lavish Dorset estate – where you’ll find Hurley, 13 contestants (all cute enough to earn a spot on Gogglebox) and one of television’s most criminally underrated stars: Rob Rinder.
Hurley is the face of Legacy, but its star is undoubtedly Rinder, who serves as Hurley’s enforcer. Before Rinder “cut the cloth,” so to speak, on daytime television as Britain’s answer to Judge Judy, he was Britain’s leading criminal. Quite literally, there is no one more perfect for the role.
Rinders is often overlooked as one of Britain’s best TV talents – perhaps because his start is as a first-time ITV daytime presenter. He’s long overdue for a primetime series that puts him squarely at the center of attention, where his sharp wit, commanding presence and willingness to laugh at his own absurdity can be fully celebrated.
Legacy feels like a show Rinder was meant to be. It just wouldn’t have the same magic without him at the helm.
Fortunately, he also has a great cast to play with: characters ranging from Zara, a 36-year-old gamer who seems determined to make as many enemies as possible with a misguided sense of self-confidence, to Jesse, a disabled, unhinged boy from the door, 19, and a paramedic who is used to being underestimated, underappreciated, and overworked.
Among the usual “heroes and villains,” almost all of the cast are genuinely funny. There are endless one-liners in just one episode, and when the battle lines are drawn, the verbal jabs that scream through the stately homes are simply gold.
Legacy is the closest contender in the last four years to be held in the same esteem as Traitors, and even manages to resolve my one qualm with the Claudia Winkleman juggernaut. The opening episodes of Traitors, or even Big Brother, are always, without fail, jarring because the best characters are taken too soon.
The show doesn’t show off to anyone – at least not at first – and the most unsung characters get a chance to wreak havoc they were assumed to be before they were cut, long after we’ve done with them.
It’s been a long time since a show has arrived that feels completely fresh — and proves itself worth sticking around for after just one episode. Legacy is an unexpected masterpiece that deserves to live a long and prosperous life, even if Lisa Hurley has to die in the process.
Legacy starts August 31 on Channel 4
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