Amazon was probably hoping that Citadel would redefine streaming TV when it landed in April 2023 but the spy thriller, which was reportedly the second most expensive TV show ever made at $300 million, divided audiences and critics. That hasn't slowed down the Prime Video subterfuge franchise though and we'll see a lot more of it before the year is out.
We always knew that the show would have multiple seasons (next up: Citadel season 2) as well as at least four regional spin-offs, and the first two of those have had their release dates announced... for within a month of each other.
Amazon already announced that Citadel: Diana, the Italian-set spin-off teased at the end of the first season of Citadel, would land on Prime Video in its entirety on Thursday, October 10. However according to Variety the second spin-off, Citadel: Honey Bunny, will be out very soon after, on Thursday, November 7.
Citadel: Honey Bunny is an Indian-set prequel series to the main story, set in the country in the 1990s. It's a spy-themed love story between its two leads code-named Bunny, played by Varun Dhawan, and Honey played by Samantha Ruth Prabhu.
Both of these spin-offs look to be more contained stories than the big-budget main series, and that may be a good thing given that lots of criticism of Citadel was levelled at its scale which created a lot of mess.
Citadel is about the titular spy agency: eight years prior it was destroyed by rivals Manticore following the betrayal of one of its own, but its agents slowly pick up the pieces to fight back and save the world from Manticore's machinations. This was taught to us across just six episodes, so we haven't had much time in the world.
Having two Citadel TV shows in such quick succession may be quite overwhelming for fans, particularly when you consider that the main series wasn't exactly the smash hit that Amazon likely hoped it would be. How many characters from Citadel, or elements of its world-building, do you remember? By mid-November, there will be twice as many episodes of Citadel's spin-offs as there are for the main series, complicating matters further.
I didn't mind Citadel as much as most critics, but even I'm not sure if I care about watching 12 episodes of its spin-offs without a breather in between!
It's also going to be a busy season for fans of TV thrillers on Prime Video: it also has Like a Dragon: Yakuza, a video game-adapted Japanese crime show, and Cross, a new adaptation of the Alex Cross character from James Patterson's novels, coming on Thursday, October 25 and Thursday, November 14 respectively.
So we'll have to see if Citadel: Diana and Honey Bunny manage to make more of a splash than the main series and win viewers over.
We don't know the release date of Citadel season 2 (which is reportedly set to begin filming later in 2024) or the Mexican or Spanish spin-offs, but hopefully, after the one-two punch of Diana and Honey Bunny, we can have a little break before they roll along!
