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With ‘Homeland’ love gone, Carrie’s all business
PASADENA — ‘ HOMELAND” fans are debating where the show can go after three years circling the ultimately doomed romance between Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) and Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis).
Showtime president David Nevins suggests they consider the possibility those three years were actually a diversion from the show’s real mission.
“This is a show that is fundamentally about a field operative,” Nevins told TV writers here. “And we really haven’t seen Carrie — with the exception of the very beginning of season one and the very end of season three — out in the field operating.
“We knew all along we were headed for a major reset. So the likely plan for next year is you will see her on the ground in a foreign capital doing her job.”
And yes, he says, Mandy Patinkin’s Saul Berenson will play a “central” role.
Ian McKellen says a seemingly small shift in the portrayal of gay characters in sitcoms has made all the difference.
McKellen is co-starring with Derek Jacobi in “Vicious ,” the upcoming PBS adaptation of a Gary Janetti comedy about two aging gay men who have been together 48 years and bicker constantly.
“Earlier British sitcoms had gay characters, or rather, gay stereotypes,” McKellen said. “The point of those oldfashioned sitcoms was that to be gay was, in itself, funny, and you laughed at the characters rather than with them.
“We don’t get laughs because we’re gay, but because we’re the people we are.”
Dick Wolf, producer of the NBC dramas “Chicago Fire” and now it s sister “Chicago PD,” says both shows may be a little too wholesome for New York. Wolf, who filmed “Law & Order” in New York for 20 years and has repeatedly declared he loves the city, says there were a couple of reasons he set the newer two shows in the heartland.
“When we were thinking where to put ‘Chicago Fire,’ ” he said, “I didn’t want to put it in New York because ‘Rescue Me’ had just gone off and I thought that would be a big mistake, because the shows were 180 degrees different.
“I didn’t want New York creeping in in any kind of negative way.”
But also, he said, “The values that are espoused in ‘Fire’ are the kind of all-American values that are almost a little too homespun for either coast. ... [Chicago] is the heart of America. The values there are the values that many, many people agree with more than sometimes either coast.”
“Chicago PD” is about a unit commander, played by Jason Beghe, who in the pilot extracts information from a suspect by any means necessary.