Hulu’s putting the final touches on a deal for a show called Citizen. The people behind it sound great. The actual description is so filled with meaningless PR buzzwords I have literally no idea what’s happening.
Citizen comes from Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, director of Me and Earl and The Dying Girl. Which sounds like a good person to have on a project! But then there’s the description of the show from Deadline:
Created, written and executive produced by Gomez-Rejon, Josh Pate and Nicholas Schutt, Citizen is described as a fresh take on the hero origin story blending elements of magical realism and gritty vigilantism set against the backdrop of a vibrant, “supernaturalized” Los Angeles. Anonymous Content’s David Kanter, Matt DeRossand Steve Golin also executive produce.
And I get that you have to talk the meaningless talk to get studios to sign on, but this is crazy: “Fresh take,” “hero origin,” “magical realism,” “gritty,” “supernaturalized,” are all fairly meaningless. Take out “Los Angeles,” and this exact pitch could have been used for later seasons of Arrow. And the name Citizen doesn’t really help clear anything up.
It’s a brand new origin story of a gritty vigilante in an alternate Los Angeles that has the supernatural and magic. That’s clear as mud. As a description it completely turns me off of something I should be interested in. Let’s hope the creators do a better job hashing out the idea for screen than they have in this teaser copy.
[Deadline]