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Oct 24, 2023

Reviews Slam "Citadel" As "Silo" Gets Raves

Amazon Prime’s second most expensive TV series to date, behind only “The Lord of

Amazon Prime's second most expensive TV series to date, behind only "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power," is the just launched spy thriller series "Citadel" which hails from "Avengers: Endgame" helmers Anthony and Joe Russo.

It's a real test for Amazon who has highly ambitious plans for the series with several local market spin-offs set for India, Italy and elsewhere. It also has to overcome plenty of pre-release reports surrounding its production's expense.

The six-episode series comes in at a cost of $300 million, much of that reportedly due to extensive reshoots that took place in the wake of the hiring of David Weil as showrunner after original showrunners Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec exited during production.

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Despite the lavish locations, glamorous stars and action thrills, reviewers for the series have been left cold. The show is currently sitting at a 51/100 on Metacritic and a 52% (5.9/10) on Rotten Tomatoes – for TV series that generally score higher than films – those are not good numbers.

Reviews have been somewhat nasty at times, Variety calling it a "business plan in search of a show". Rolling Stone says: "Citadel falls far, far short of transcendence, or even goodness. It is bland, generic, and almost shockingly cheap-looking, given the price tag."

The release joins a sudden flood of mixed or poorly received shows hitting this month according to Metacritic with Paramount's "Fatal Attraction" (47/100) and "Grease" prequel (59); Apple's "The Last Thing He Told Me" (49); Amazon's "Jury Duty" (51), Hulu's "Saint X" (51); Netflix's "Obsession" (37), Showtime's "Waco: The Aftermath" (52)’ and HBO's "Love & Death" (60) and "White House Plumbers" (61) all scoring weak reviews.

That's not to say there's not some bright spots. The Rebecca Ferguson-led Apple TV+ series "Silo" only has a few reviews out so far but is already pulling in an 82/100 on Metacritic. It joins "Dead Ringers" (79), Mrs. Davis" (78), "The Diplomat" (75) which have all scored very well recently and aren't far off the best scores for new TV series this year such as "Rain Dogs" (88), "Beef" (86), "The Last of Us" (84) and "Poker Face" (84).