Last summer Channel 4 revealed that it had acquired the rights to broadcast five new American TV series, including those for Showtime’s, Homeland.
The war-based thriller has already been a massive success in the US and will debut in the UK some time in 2012.
The highly anticipated drama focusses on American soldier, Nicolas Brody (Damian Lewis), who is miraculously found and sent home to America after being held as an Al-Qaeda prisoner in Iraq for eight years.
On his return the US military push for Brody to be portrayed as a national hero, however committed CIA officer, Carrie Anderson (Claire Danes), thinks differently about this and has her reasons for it. Not only is she convinced that the soldier’s rescue was a setup, but she also believes that Brody has ‘turned bad’ and that he might be helping Al-Qaeda plan another terrorist attack.
Finding evidence to support her claims (which are largely based on gut instinct) proves to be a challenge for the neurotic agent though, not least because a recently failed mission in the Middle East left her unpopular with her team and without any authority.
Carrie decides to investigate anyway and being that she doesn’t play by the rule book, goes ahead and sets up surveillance equipment in Brody’s house. The CIA agent gets more than she’s bargained for though when she watches the footage obtained from her covert operation, and the plot of Homeland quickly thickens.
Critics have done nothing but praise the show since it originally started. The Telegraph’s Rachel Way said that it is “Intelligent TV and a great example of artful storytelling”, whilst Channel 4's Chief Creative Officer, Jay Hunt, described it as being “…a compelling contemporary thriller”.
Tagged in Channel 4 Claire Danes