First Impressions: Homeland

(airs on Showtime, Sunday nights at 10pm beginning 10/2)

For the first thirty minutes of the premiere, Homeland appeared to be exactly what it sounded like: a 24 clone, with sub-par family plot lines and a thin line of credibility. But the last half of Homeland‘s pilot kicked things into high gear, and for the first time watching a new show this fall, I wanted more. Needless to say, Homeland is the most promising new drama of the fall thus far, and while it is definitely a show whose sum is greater than its parts, Homeland fills the void on television for good spy drama that’s been empty since the early days of Alias.

Homeland is really two shows at once. One side is the story of Carrie Matheson, CIA intelligence agent who specialized in Al-Queda intelligence- that is, until she fucked it up with an act of desperation two years before the pilot’s events take place. Her story starts out conventionally, but like the rest of the show, takes a nice sharp left-hand turn about halfway through. I won’t give away too many details until my full recap on Monday, but let’s say Ms. Matheson isn’t your average bitchy female character. It was also a joy to see Claire Danes, who we hardly see enough of. I’m looking forward to watching what Danes can do with this role, and seeing the mystery of her character unravel in front of our eyes on the screen. She could quickly become one of the great female characters on television – something we are severely lacking from, in the days of weak female characters on shows like Gossip Girl and Grey’s Anatomy, and (shudder) that awful, idiot female cop character on The Killing.

The other half of Homeland’s plot is about Nicholas Brody (Damien Lewis, who some may recognize from Band of Brothers), a US Marine found stashed away in a terrorist warehouse eight years after his imprisonment. The United States welcomes him home with open arms, and this of course, draws the ire of Carrie, who is sitting on some disturbing rumors given to her years ago by a prisoner. There is a lot about Brody and his mysterious return, but thankfully, the show doesn’t dwell on the “fish getting back into water” crap we’ve all seen a billion times. His family plays a prominent role, dealing with the return of their father and husband, and looks to be a garden of intriguing and original material for this entire season.

Thankfully, Homeland is aware of some of the conventions it might run into, considering many of the nerves it touches in the pilot are familiar ones. But like I said, the second half takes off like a lit firework, and finishes in a way too many conspiracy-laced shows are afraid to: it shows us a few cards from its hand in the closing moments. I mean, we all saw something coming, but did you expect the writers to make such a black and white decision?

It was a nice finishing touch to a gripping 20 minutes of cat-and-mouse thriller, and sets the table for a very promising season – provided the show finds its personality quickly. The one issue I had with it was the absence of a definitive style, something every pilot strives to find (although this year, most of those are epic fails). The filming techniques were very vanilla, and sometimes it made the show feel like a simple collusion of ideas from other shows. If it chisels out its own writing and visual style, Homeland is going to be a very good show (although I’m very curious how they plan on making more seasons, as opposed to a stand-alone miniseries.) You should definitely WATCH IT!

(check back on Monday to read a full recap and review of the first episode, and every Monday for the rest of the first season).