Homeland (TV series)

Homeland is an upcoming American psychological thriller television series created by Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa and Gideon Raff. The series stars Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison, a CIA operations officer who has come to believe that an American Marine, who was held captive by Al-Qaeda as a prisoner of war, was turned by the enemy and now poses a significant risk to national security.
The series will be broadcast in the United States on the cable channel Showtime, and is produced by Fox 21. It is due to premiere on October 2, 2011. The first episode was made available online, over two weeks prior to broadcast, with viewers having to complete some tasks to unlock accessBased on Gideon Raff's Israeli series Hatufim, also known as Prisoners of War, Homeland was created by Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa and Gideon Raff in early 2010. On September 19, 2010, Showtime placed a pilot order for Homeland as the first project David Nevins had undertaken since leaving Imagine Entertainment to become president of Showtime. Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa and Gideon Raff wrote the pilot, Michael Cuesta was attached to the project as director, with Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa, Gideon Raff, Avi Nir and Ron Telem serving as executive producersOn April 7, 2011, Showtime green-lighted the series with an order of 12 episodes. Along with the series pickup Showtime announced that Laura Fraser would not be continuing past the pilot and her role had been re-cast with Morena Baccarin taking over the role of Jessica Brody. It was also announced that Chip Johannessen would be joining the series as a a producer, while Michael Cuesta, who had served as the director on the pilot, would join the series as an executive producer. Showtime later announced that Jamey Sheridan, Navid Negahban, Amir Arison and Brianna Brown had joined the series as recurring guest stars. Sheridan was cast as the Vice President of the United States, Negahban was cast as Abu Nazir, with Arison playing Prince Farid Bin Abbud and Brown playing Lynne Reed.
On July 21, 2011, at the San Diego Comic-Con, Showtime announced that the series would premiere on October 2, 2011. Along with the announcement of the premiere date for the series, the network also announced that the names of the characters portrayed by Claire Danes and Damian Lewis had been renamed Carrie Mathison and Nicholas Brody, respectively. The series is produced by Fox 21.The pilot episode has received universal acclaim, scoring 92 out of 100 from 20 critics. Hank Stuever of The Washington Post gave the pilot episode an A-, saying "What makes Homeland rise above other post-9/11 dramas is Danes's stellar performance as Carrie — easily this season's strongest female character" and that "The latter half of the first episode is exhilarating. I'm hooked. Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe said it was his favorite drama pilot of the season, giving it an A. Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker gave it an A-, stating "It's the fall season's most intriguing, tense puzzler.