‘Homeland’ reflects the debate over ‘deep state’

NBC boots analyst

LOS ANGELES, Feb 12, (RTRS): The new season of “Homeland” will see Carrie (Claire Danes) fighting the authoritarian tendencies of President Keane (Elizabeth Marvel), including her attacks on the so-called “deep state.” Sound familiar? On the latest edition of “PopPolitics” on SiriusXM’s POTUS Channel, “Homeland” director and producer Lesli Linka Glatter talks about how the show reflects what is happening in real life, perhaps even more so in its seventh season than in the past.

“The issues we are talking about this season — the world being off balance, that we have a new world order, and people are entrenched in their own beliefs — I think these are things that are very provocative ideas, but to try to outguess the real world, boy, I don’t know how you do that,” Glatter says.

Last year saw issues surrounding real news vs. fake news, to the point where Glatter said that she wondered, “Are we in ‘Parallax View’ territory?”

But, she says, it is one thing to reflect the themes of the moment and another to rip from the headlines.

“You can’t try to outguess the news. It’s impossible,” she says. “And what is happening in the world now is certainly beyond anything I have seen in my lifetime, so you could never try to outguess what is happening in real life.”

The show’s production team meets with a group from the intelligence community for a day-long session at the start of each new season. Glatter said that at the most recent meeting last spring, it was apparent that “there is definitely a very different relationship” with the White House.

“Most of the people in the intelligence community, they have a huge commitment to America,” she says.

She said that the show would probably be different had Hillary Clinton won the election in 2016. But in creating the Keane character, “We made a very clear decision that we were not going with a Hillary clone at all.”

The show shoots in Richmond, Va., and the D.C. area, and that proximity has made for situations where fictitious characterizations run up against unfolding drama.

Glatter recalls shooting one scene in which Keane is at a hotel, “with a huge demonstration going on outside, the sign saying ‘Not my president,’ when down the street at Trump Tower the same thing was happening.”

“That was pretty crazy,” she said.

“Star Trek: Discovery” wrapped up its first season with the appearance of an unexpected visitor in the closing moments of the episode. Last chance to avoid spoilers. As the Discovery makes its way toward Vulcan, they receive an emergency distress call from a nearby Federation starship. The ship turns out to be the USS Enterprise under the command of Capt Christopher Pike.

Series executive producer and co-creator Alex Kurtzman tells Variety that while the iconic starship will play a part in the next season, it will not becomes its central focus.

“The show is called ‘Discovery.’ It’s not ‘Enterprise,’” Kurtzman said. “So yes, the Enterprise will play a part of Season 2 but it will absolutely not overshadow Discovery. And I think with Enterprise’s arrival in the finale we recognize that the audience has a lot of questions about our synchronicity with the original series, which really means or synchronicity with canon. So the promise of the Enterprise holds the answers to a lot of those questions, including Spock’s relationship with his half-sister who he’s never mentioned. Which does not necessarily mean you’re going to see Spock, just that we owe an answer to that question.”

The episode sees the Discovery crew, led by the Mirror Universe Philippa Georgiou, making their way to the Klingon homeworld Qo’noS. Their plan is to map the surface to help Starfleet prepare for a full-scale invasion.

Georgiou leads an away team consisting of Burnham, Tilly, and Tyler to the planet’s surface disguised as weapons dealers. Tyler is brought along due to his access to Voq’s memories, granting him significant knowledge of the planet and its customs. They infiltrate a local marketplace, where eagle-eyed fans will catch a quick glimpse of the Ceti eels from “Wrath of Khan” being cooked up as a tasty snack. Clint Howard, who previously appeared in several different “Trek” iterations, also makes an appearance.

As they hunt for information, Tilly finds out the case she has been carrying does not contain a mapping drone as she thought, but instead a powerful explosive. Georgiou takes the explosive and vanishes, planning to detonate the explosive within an active volcano, causing a catastrophic reaction that will destroy the planet.

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PYEONGCHANG: Joshua Cooper Ramo, the commentator who offended locals during coverage of the Pyeongchang Olympics opening ceremony by straying into the sensitive issue of Japan-South Korean relations, has been taken off the air, US broadcaster NBC said on Monday.

“Joshua Cooper Ramo has completed his responsibilities for NBC in Pyeongchang, and will have no further role on our air,” an NBC spokesman said in an email to Reuters.

NBC, a unit of Comcast Corp had announced in December that Ramo would be a contributor at the Games, having previously served as an expert on culture and geo-political issues during the 2008 Beijing Olympics for the network.

Ramo’s speaker agency that represents him did not respond to a request for comment.

Ramo, who has written books on China and is a corporate director of Starbucks Corp and FedEx Corp, said as athletes paraded into the Games stadium on Friday that “every Korean will tell you that Japan is a cultural, technological and economic example that has been so important to their own transformation”.

Koreans around the world criticized his remarks on social media and a petition soon circulated online.

Japan, which colonized the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945, has left a deep legacy of mistrust and ill-feeling in South Korea.

The Pyeongchang Organising Committee (POCOG) had earlier told Reuters that it “informed NBC of the errors in their commentary and the sensitivity of the subject in Korea”.

NBC apologised in writing to Pyeongchang’s organising committee for the remark, which the committee said it had accepted.