IF YOU MISSED the opening episode of Homeland on RTÉ2 last night, when it was flung mercilessly against the Late Late Show, then try and catch it before next week. In a culture which is continually insisting that the latest US programme is Your New Favourite Drama, this really is Your New Favourite Drama.
It features Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison, a CIA agent who believes that Damian Lewis’s marine (Sgt Nicholas Brody) has been turned by al-Queda during his eight years as a POW. It is a thriller, clearly, with the is-he-or-isn’t-he element given several extra levels by how Mathison is bipolar and haunted with paranoia that it is personal, but also related to her role in a post 9/11 agency afraid of being caught out again. But its strength comes through character development, which is painstaking and detailed and repeatedly rewards attentiveness.
Great drama grounded on uncomfortable political reality - The Irish Times - Sat, Jan 14, 2012
- here’s where we talk about American television and attempt to negotiate a distinct location in an environment of post-nationalism and globalisation. fyi, American right-wingers/isolationists, there already is a ‘One World’, and it’s American. (at least if you’re speaking English, and not like, Chinese or Arabic - or weirdest of all, French)
- I’m interested to see where they go with the mental health dimension; I noticed she referred to it as “having a mood disorder”, which is the more correct, person-fronted phrasing
- Just realised I managed to have crushes on both Claire Danes and Damien Lewis in my teenage years
- If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch a couple of episodes of the Danish political drama, Borgen, being broadcast on BBC4
