Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin were away, shooting season four of “Homeland” in South Africa, where Capetown was meant to sub for Islamabad.
But the producers appeared at the TV Critics’ summer press tour Friday to outline a bit on where the show would be going when it returns to Showtime Oct. 5. What was clear was that the story had moved to Pakistan, Patinkin’s Saul character was still involved, but as a private contractor instead of a CIA director.
The cast will include Rupert Friend’s Peter Quinn character and the Muslim analyst played by Nazanin Boniadi. One big addition to the cast is Suraj Sharma, star of “Life of Pi,” to whom Carrie Mathison gets close.
In many ways they were back to square one, particularly since the apocalyptic end of the season three, producer Meredith Stiehm said. And a three month stint doing research in D.C. “did feel like the process you go through when you’re creating a new show.”
“We spent a week in Washington talking to these CIA people and asked State Department people, asking them, ‘What’s on your mind?'” she said. From that, they decided which direction and which country to set it in.
“Sitting down for those days in these marathon sessions, we got a fairly clear and profound briefing about what is going on, what is being discussed in the halls of power, what the intelligence agencies are most afraid of,” producer Alex Gansa says. “And that is represented in the season, as it is represented in every season. But we’re in a very particular and kind of exalted position to be able to do that — especially with the people who watch our television show.”
From the various scenarios presented to them, “we spent about two weeks seriously considering the possibility of setting the show in Israel this season,” Gansa says. “And all I can tell you is I’m very happy that we didn’t.”
But, Gansa said, “the show is about the private and public costs of keeping America safe. That’s the overarching theme of the season.”
Carrie will explore the personal costs of that, he said. “But there also is a national cost to our policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan specifically. And one of the things that the intelligence officers and the State Department people were talking to us about in Washington is this idea that we have left Iraq and we are about to draw down in Afghanistan. And what did all those years of blood and treasure mean, and who’s left on the ground to pick up the pieces?
“And largely who’s left on the ground to pick up the pieces once the military draws down are intelligence officers and State Department people. And those are the embassies that are scattered in those two places, in Islamabad and Kabul. And that’s the story that we’re dramatizing this year.”
Part of the luncheon panel was spent in defending the third season, which wasn’t up to par according to some. “The criticism hurt,” Gansa said. “The the lack of an Emmy nomination hurt. But we’re going to come back strong and try to get to the mountaintop again.”