The president of Showtime, David Nevins, said that Homeland writer-producer Alex Gansa might find a new “antagonist” for CIA agent Carrie Mathison on the show Homeland. The network honcho said no decision had been made yet, but assured that the villains in the story would be chosen for creative reasons and not in response to recent terror events.
“Where they’re going to go next year is a little bit up in the air,” Nevins told critics at the Television Critics Association’s semi-annual press tour Monday. “We’re not necessarily going to stay [with addressing] U.S. relations in the Muslim world. The real franchise of the show is how difficult it is to be America in the world in the 21st century, how difficult the choices are. I think that’s a story that will remain relevant for as long as they can come up with new stories. It could be Africa, it could be Europe, it could be back in another place in the Middle East. I don’t expect that show to fall into a formula. I can see it coming back to the U.S. at some point.”
Nevins also mentioned the scary creative environment — “it’s a bit of a scary time to be a maker of controversial, political truth. It’s been a bad month for free speech around the world.”
Homeland has focused on Islamic terrorists in the Middle East and in the United States since it started in 2011. Nevin said he hoped the recent terror attacks in France don’t play into any ideas for the show. “I hope [the attacks are] not considered at all,” he said. “I really, really don’t want there to be any limitations. I don’t expect there will be. They never shied away from anything difficult. I want them to go right into the teeth of it again.”
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