Amazon Studios
There’s a lot riding on Citadel, Amazon’s wannabe-franchise series, what with its reported $200 million-plus price tag (making it the second most expensive TV venture ever, after The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), designs for multiple international spin-offs, and a second-season renewal ahead of its April 28 Prime Video premiere. The streamer and executive-producers Joe and Anthony Russo have bet the house on their long-gestating spy saga, which was announced in 2018 and is intended to be a cornerstone of the company’s long-term small-screen plans.
Now that the initial results are in, it appears they might want to cut their losses.
At least in the first three (shockingly brief) installments of its six-episode debut run, Citadel is the definition of generic, trading in stock espionage clichés dressed up with superficial embellishments in a manner not unlike the Russos’ The Gray Man. That so much money was spent on such little originality is almost astonishing, and likely due in part to behind-the-scenes shake-ups, with maiden showrunner Josh Appelbaum and director Brian Kirk departing the project and Hunters mastermind David Weil taking over. Still, there’s no excusing the dearth of novel ideas dispensed by this by-the-books affair, whose action-romance is of a rote, enervating variety, and only made bearable by the moderate chemistry shared by its two leads.