10 TV Shows That Just Made Huge Mistakes

10. Spending $300 Million On The First Season - Citadel

Amazon's new spy-thriller series Citadel is so slickly generic you couldn't be blamed for assuming the scripts were written by an AI, because even the sex appeal of Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas can scarcely keep this thing afloat.

But Citadel being another of the many identikit espionage streaming shows would be absolutely fine, if not for the fact that Amazon spent an eye-watering $300 million on the six-episode season, making it the second-most expensive season of TV ever, behind another Amazon show, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

The primary reason for the ballooning budget - ultimately costing more than your average Marvel Cinematic Universe movie - is due to the show undergoing extensive reshoots last year after a major change in creative direction, with the series' original showrunners being replaced.

The reshoots alone reportedly added $65 million to the overall production budget, but with Amazon believing that Citadel is their Next Big Thing, and even commissioning a second season and numerous international spin-offs already, they're clearly going all-in on it.

While the show's premiere enjoyed strong ratings despite poor reviews, and it's fair to say that season two should be considerably cheaper to produce, it's simply tough to believe that audiences will remain invested in such a formulaic spy serial long enough to ever justify the bewildering cost.

Even with the economics of streaming TV being so incredibly vague, this doesn't seem like smart spending - not even for a company as loaded as Amazon.