James Bond Meets Mr. & Mrs. Smith In Prime Video's 2-Part Spy Thriller Series

Although Prime Video’s two-part James Bond replacement wasn’t the global mega hit that the streaming service hoped for, that doesn’t mean that this mix of 007 and Mr. & Mrs. Smith isn’t worth watching. In 2024, Prime Video’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith cast Maya Erskine and Donald Glover as a pair of spies living undercover posing as a married couple in a series that offered a meta spin on the 2005 movie of the same name starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

A critical hit, 2024's Mr. & Mrs. Smith was praised for finding a fresh take on the familiar premise almost two decades after the original movie proved a box office success. However, this wasn’t the first time that Prime Video tried to replicate Mr. & Mrs. Smith’s premise. Much like Relic Hunter unofficially adapted Lara Croft years before the official live-action movie adaptations of the hit video game franchise, an earlier Prime Video show aimed to mix the James Bond franchise with Mr. & Mrs. Smith without any explicit canon links to either intellectual property.

Starring Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden as Nadia Sinh and Mason Kane, Citadel focused on the titular super secret spy program. Citadel agents were tasked with keeping the world safe from the villainous Manticore, a job that saw the duo pose as an ordinary couple while simultaneously undertaking life-endangering, globe-trotting espionage missions. When Citadel’s two-season story begins, Kane and Sinh have had their memories wiped, so the pair must rediscover their identities while defeating Manticore in the process.

Citadel Blends James Bond’s Globe-trotting Action With The Premise of Mr. & Mrs. Smith

If that premise sounds more than a little familiar, that might be because the Bourne franchise followed another amnesiac spy working for another extra governmental agency who also needed to recover his missing memories while on the run from nefarious actors. The main difference was that the Bourne movies pitted their antihero against the CIA, whereas Citadel was very much posited as a heroic institution in the Prime Video show.

Compared to the messier moral ambiguity of Netflix’s The Night Agent, the show’s simplistic good vs. bad framing did little to win over critics. This was unfortunate since, with a reported production budget of over $280 million, Citadel needed to be a massive, unambiguous hit to justify its expensive price tag. While the show lasted two seasons and spawned the spinoffs Citadel: Diana and Citadel: Honey Bunny, Citadel is still far from a breakout hit and its attempts to replace the 007 franchise in the pop culture imagination fell way short.

However, while Citadel wasn’t the record-breaking success that Prime Video hoped for, this doesn’t mean that the franchise’s offerings are not worth a watch. For fans of spy cinema, the fast-paced, action-packed show offers a more traditional thrill ride than the likes of Apple TV’s subversively dark, grounded Slow Horses, and Citadel’s mix of The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and James Bond throws so much at the wall that some elements inevitably stick.

Citadel’s Franchise Failure Highlights An Unlikely Trend In Spy Shows

Ultimately, while Citadel probably can’t justify costing as much as Arcane, The Last of Us, or Fallout, the show is a perfectly serviceable spy series with an impressive supporting cast including Jack Reynor, Stanley Tucci, Rahul Kohli, and Lina El Arabi. However, the show’s lackluster performance among both reviewers and viewers highlights an unlikely trend in the world of spy shows that deserves further inspection.

The aforementioned Slow Horses was appropriately titled, as the show follows lesser spies who are tasked with the unglamorous grunt work that keeps intelligence agencies busy. This sounds like a humdrum premise more suited to a workplace comedy than a spy thriller, but it has instead provided Apple TV with one of the most acclaimed spy shows of the last decade.

Similarly, although Citadel cost a lot more money, Prime Video’s Reacher is a much bigger hit with audiences. Thus, if Citadel's mix of James Bond and Mr. & Mrs. Smith has proven anything, it’s that viewers want subversive, atypical spy shows more than cookie-cutter 007 knock-offs.