Listener’s October viewing guide: Cate Blanchett in thriller Disclaimer, Citadel sets up shop in Italy

Italian spin-off of big-budget spy series

Streaming: Prime Video, from October 10

The six episodes of Prime’s 2023 Russo brothers-produced tech-spy thriller Citadel cost $300 million to make and it didn’t win the critical plaudits that budget might lead you to expect. The Italian-language Citadel: Diana is the first of a planned series of international spin-offs (the Indian version, Citadel: Honey Bunny, debuts on November 7). Matilda De Angelis stars as Diana Cavalieri, an undercover agent for the independent spy agency Citadel, who has been stuck as a mole in the enemy syndicate Manticore since it destroyed Citadel eight years earlier. When she glimpses a way out, it means trusting the most unlikely of allies.

Fact vs fiction thriller

Streaming: Apple TV+, from October 11

With Disclaimer, Cate Blanchett looks to be shifting into the book-based television domestic thriller territory where Nicole Kidman has pitched her tent since Big Little Lies. It’s also a rare small-screen excursion for Oscar-winning director Alfonso Cuarón. His adaptation of Renée Knight’s 2015 mystery bestseller is the first product of a deal signed with Apple TV+ in 2019. His past films, including his Harry Potter film Prisoner of Azkaban or PD James’s Children of Men, show he’s good with books but he’s certainly stretching things out on Disclaimer. He’s managed to get seven episodes – all scripted and directed by him – from 350 or so pages. Mostly set in London, it’s the tale of award-winning documentary maker Catherine Ravenscroft (Blanchett) who finds a guilty secret of hers from decades past has been revealed in a novel by an unknown author and which threatens to destroy her marriage to Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen). The cast also includes Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville and Kodi Smit-McPhee and the series had a big-screen debut at the Venice Film Festival in August to decent reviews. It debuts with two episodes then one a week.

Strange things happen in rural Georgia

Streaming: TVNZ+, from October 11

This show comes with the name of horror heavyweight James Wan (Saw) attached as producer and is loosely based on Robert McCammon’s 1988 novel Stinger. The people of a rural Georgia community are faced with a mysterious entity and must work together to save themselves. Advance publicity has been scant – in keeping with the theme of mystery – but we do know that it stars Yvonne Strahovski (The Handmaid’s Tale), Scott Speedman (Grey’s Anatomy), Rob Morgan (Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty) and Chaske Spencer (Banshee) – and that the showrunner is Ian McCulloch (the writer of Yellowstone, not the singer of Echo and the Bunnymen).

Inside the mind of the creator