Is Showtime's HOMELAND The Best New Series This Season? → On Demand Weekly

Is Showtime’s HOMELAND The Best New Series This Season?October 14, 2011

Showtime

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies and shows on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: "Homeland" (Showtime).

HOMELAND - Starring Claire Danes

By Jean Tait

I’ll admit, I was worried. The premise of a rogue (yes, I hate that word since Sarah Palin ruined it!) CIA agent with mental illness issues determined to bring down a possibly traitorous, newly returned home POW. Include call girl operatives, scene-stealing Mandy Patinkin as her boss, and “V”’s imperious Morena Baccarin as the sweetheart wife back home, and you’ve got a recipe for a potentially typical nighttime soap opera. Not that there is anything terribly wrong with that (I’m quite enjoying “Revenge”), but it’s nothing to get excited about, either.

Wow, was I wrong! Rich in detail and character, “Homeland” is complex and intriguing.

Claire Danes is brilliant—

all hard edges and passionate intensity

with just enough self-doubt to keep her

on the edge of coming unhinged.

She could so easily have played the character as “likable,” but she makes the daring choices that keep Agent Mathison fascinating.

Equally fascinating are Damien Lewis as returning hero (?) Sgt. Brody and Baccarin as his almost mousy wife who was just starting to live again when she found out her presumed-dead husband was really alive. Mandy Patinkin is positively understated as Agent Mathison’s mentor and boss (who knew it was possible!), leaving me intrigued as to how his character will develop.

I’m also curious how the Muslims-are-all-bad-guys aspect will play out. Although the first episode plays into that zeitgeist, as the second and third episodes come along, I’m cautiously optimistic that “Homeland” will keep the three-dimensions in the Islamic characters, as well.

Oh, yes. I’ll be back for more. Showtime has a real winner with “Homeland.”

- Jean Tait

Jean
Jean Tait is a contributing writer to On Demand Weekly. Currently the Director of Programming for the Connecticut Film Festival, Jean has programmed for the Jacksonville Film Festival and Sundance Channel.