Citadel

This is an initial review of the first episode of this series.

While this is an intriguing concept in the vein of Jack Ryan/Jason Bourne and the many spy adaptations that have been brought to the big and small screen lately, it fails to live up to the hype.

The first thing that jumped out to me about this series was the cringy-ness of the dialogue and the lazy plot writing. The initial meeting in the trail between the two main characters debuts with very poorly written dialogue that felt like it was trying way too hard to be clever. The action scenes that followed were pretty well executed, but nothing I haven't seen before.

The plot tropes that followed have been seen in a ton of spy movies/series already, it felt like a soft-boiled crowd-sourced spy series where they threw a bunch of heavily-used spy tropes in a blender to make something basic and unimaginative.

The bottom line is that this series has failed to find a unique identity and very much risks being forgotten over time. The action scenes were pretty good but the characters seem to be basic and unmemorable so far. To be fair, it's very early in the series. But unless is seen something unique from a story perspective that captures my attention, I am not going to waste my time watching further. I hope things improve but I'm not optimistic.

There were some undoubtedly good moments as this series set up, unfortunately, the further the series went the less promise it showed.

This is tricky, I really wanted to like Citadel, and I did like the first episode.

It's a little tempting to think that this is what happens when you throw too much money at something and don't make it work hard enough to earn that money and develop.

True there was some classic spy action - but with only a few exceptions this wasn't really groundbreaking stuff. Also true that an element of predictability crept into the show the further it went.

What we ended up with is a show that absolutely looks the part, but that when all is said and done is less the sum of its parts, whereas at a rumored $300 million it should clearly have been more - much more.

Citadel is another sad example of a show that chose form over function - looking good, rather than really getting the razor to the story and whittling and revising until something fresh and entertaining remains - new twists on old tails.

Let's hope they learn the lesson for season 2.

Y'all know the trope of an amnesic spy is that we audience gotta discover the protagonist's backstory together with him, right? Why on earth would you begin the show with a complete flashback? There might be plot twists and betrayals down the road, but you also need to entice the audience to keep watching to see that happen.

Besides starring Richard Madden as discount Matt Damon, we also have Stanley Tucci being a discount Mark Strong. Sounds familiar? Good-guy independent spy agency? Add a sprinkle of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and you get this utter lack of originality show.

Also what kind of incompetent spy agency keeps a list of all their agents and black sites in one document, and all their secrets together in literally one briefcase?

Not impressed.

From the beginning of the show, it is clear what they were trying to do with the whole story, the concept of the Citadel universe as a whole is great, but it is indeed badly executed. If only they worked on the execution more; as in story telling, how the series of events would run after one another, noticed that there's a lot of flashbacks at wrong points throughout the episodes, and sometimes even too many flashbacks back to back, forgetting sometimes that the series is also taking place in real time. The whole high tech part of the series is also amazing what they tried to accomplish but their ambition was their undoing. This series is capable of being top notch, but the story telling needs refining, while watching you'd feel that the episode is out of place or out of sync with the story, you'd feel that it's missing something. Again more work is needed on execution.

Personally I thought Citadel was every bit as good as I had hoped it would be but with so many mixed reviews my advice would be to just go watch it for yourself. It's about two spies who loved each other (Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra) but have their memories wiped after their agency was destroyed by a powerful syndicate. It's now 8 years later and they have built their own lives with new identities and no memory of being spies. They then try to get their memories back to help prevent a New World Order from happening. This kind of story has been done numerous times before but Citadel still does it with a fresh new take. Some of it is unbelievable but just turn your mind off and enjoy it for what it is and that's an action packed thriller.