At the very start of Homeland, the most riveting US television series to land on our shores for many years, a CIA analyst bribes her way into an Iraqi prison and extorts information from a condemned al-Qaeda bomb maker. He tells her that an American prisoner of war has been ââ¬Åturnedââ¬Â.
Ten months later, in a raid on an al-Qaeda compound, US marines find a locked chamber from which they recover an American serviceman, missing for eight years. As the nation prepares to welcome a returning hero, she sees a potential terrorist.
Homeland begins a 12-part run on Channel 4 on Sunday night, and promises to grip a British audience as effectively as it has US viewers, including its most famous fan, President Barack Obama, who recently named it among his favourite television dramas.
In last monthââ¬â¢s Golden Globes, the series won two of the big three awards, Best Drama and Best Actress ââ¬â for Claire Danes, who plays CIA analyst Carrie Mathison, while British actor Damian Lewis was also nominated for his brilliant portrayal of Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody.
As its opening titles make clear, Homeland, though set 10 years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, is located in an America still unnerved by the events of September 11. Brody returns to a nation where all the old certainties have vanished: a country in which you can no longer trust your wife, your best friend, your boss, the security services or the government. Almost every character in Homeland is holding on to a secret, be it sexual, emotional, medical or political.
