If “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” was Amazon’s attempt to supply its streaming service Prime Video with a homegrown version of “Game of Thrones,” the new spy series “Citadel” is its attempt at a “Squid Game,” “Money Heist” or “Love Is Blind”: a show with the global appeal to match the reach of its platform, and a potential franchise that could support international spinoffs.
As with the underwhelming “Rings of Power,” that cart-before-the-horse approach can’t help showing in the final product. Also evident is a reportedly chaotic production that included extensive reshoots, a showrunner switch and a shortened episode order. There are traces of that turmoil in the credits; the pilot’s teleplay is attributed to no fewer than five screenwriters.
Not that quality really matters for Amazon, which has already greenlit a second season of “Citadel,” as well as satellite shows set in Italy and India. In theory, this English-language flagshipwill be the center of a whole interconnected universe. But a sprawling structure needs a rock-solid foundation, and the one “Citadel” provides is shaky at best.
Synopsizing “Citadel” feels redundant. While technically original, the story could be sourced from a word cloud of the Wikipedia page for “spy thriller.” The titular organization is an international syndicate concerned with Cold War-era threats like loose nuclear weapons. Its top two agents, Mason (
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