Homeland

[moderatevoter]

Does anyone watch this show? Worth watching?

Apparently Season 4 is set in Pakistan. I'm tempted to watch it now, which is why I ask.

[badgate]

I have high hopes for Season 4 that it'll be on par with season 1. I definitely think the absence of Brody will breathe new life into the show.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

It's one of my favourite shows. I'd go so far as to say that season one is flawless. Many people argue that season two is crazy and veered too far into 24 territory, but 24 is also one of my favourite shows, so I didn't mind. Season three is... not as good as the other two.

Without spoiling anything, season four is really going to have to find a way to reinvent the show. I'm not convinced it's possible.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I have high hopes for Season 4 that it'll be on par with season 1. I definitely think the absence of Brody will breathe new life into the show.

Do you really think it will? Season three, to me, was at its weakest when it was just Carrie. Brody's return at the end of the season with the "is he/isn't he" schtick felt like a solid return to form. I'm nervous about how things will go now. Will it just be a suped-up version of CSI?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Season 1 was great although a bit over-rated (I don't mean that as a knock on the season in any way, it simply did far better than it should've at the emmys, although oddly enough, the best actor on the show was the one who didn't get nominated ).  Season 2 was disappointing and pretty uneven (if season 1 was the Trinity Killer Season of Dexter than this was the season with that random religious nut + Tom Hank's son).  Season 3 was basically a really, really bad season of 24, but without Kiefer Sutherland's consistently excellent performance (disclaimer, I quit watching mid-way through season three).  I would only recommend season 1 and would argue it would've been better if they just made the first season a miniseries or something.

[Paul Kemp]

Worth watching?

Not unless you're looking to watch 24 with even more melodrama and outlandish plots, as well as a protagonist that sets female main characters back 20 years.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The strange thing about the hot mess that is Homeland is that Hatufim (broadcast here as 'Prisoners of War') is a genuinely brilliant piece of work.

[Silent Hunter]

Worth watching?

Not unless you're looking to watch 24 with even more melodrama and outlandish plots, as well as a protagonist that sets female main characters back 20 years.

Please explain this one...

[Paul Kemp]

Worth watching?

Not unless you're looking to watch 24 with even more melodrama and outlandish plots, as well as a protagonist that sets female main characters back 20 years.

Please explain this one...

They've undercut what should be a strong, compelling original female character by making her an irrational crazy person that will do anything, no matter how far out of this world, and lets her emotions get the best of her just to be with the man that she needs otherwise she's left in a mess of worthlessness and cannot do her job correctly. Of course, this is may be one of the lesser problems of the show - the main one being just being badly written. The last season was like trying to be le Carre for third graders.

The show would have been much better without the lame romance angle (I mean...among replacing the most of the creative staff and putting it on a channel that doesn't suck creativity out of shows like Showtime does). Once it was clear that was the direction they were going with it, I lost interest. Still watched the second season though, and a few episodes of the third - just to catch how bad and laughable it got.

[Silent Hunter]

She's a brilliant analyst who happens to be bipolar - not crazy (Homeland won a PRISM award in 2013 for its portrayal of mental health issues). Who hasn't let their emotions get the better of them. Oh and the romance angle is now gone.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

She's a brilliant analyst who happens to be bipolar - not crazy (Homeland won a PRISM award in 2013 for its portrayal of mental health issues). Who hasn't let their emotions get the better of them. Oh and the romance angle is now gone.

The damage was done already though.  She clearly isn't good enough to be kept in her job despite her bipolar disorder and she would've been fired for a lot of the crap she tries to pull.  Also the romance thing was a problem even in season 1.

[Paul Kemp]

She's a brilliant analyst who happens to be bipolar - not crazy

What exactly has she done that has been "brilliant"? The gist of the show always seems to be 'take a look at this crazy woman who keeps mucking up the works!" She's only "brilliant" because they're telling you that she is.

Homeland won a PRISM award in 2013 for its portrayal of mental health issues.

...which means? Have you taken a look at their past winners and nominees? Not exactly a bastion of quality - in fact, they seem to just honor about any program that mentions a particular issues and not exactly how it is handled.

Who hasn't let their emotions get the better of them. Oh and the romance angle is now gone.

Right, but the problem was moreso that it was incredible uninteresting and poorly written. When they weren't spending time on that angle, they were trying to spin one-note juvenile spy stories.

Homeland is fine, I guess, if you want to view it through a similar lens as shows like 24 (it's most frequent comparison) - which can be entertaining - but it's certainly not the landmark, prestige drama that some want to make it out to be. In fact, it would probably be a better show if they just went full on in a pulp direction and stopped trying hard to be "great" (a problem that House of Cards,  another Atlas favorite, has as well - the US version at least, haven't seen the original).

[Silent Hunter]

What exactly has she done that has been "brilliant"? The gist of the show always seems to be 'take a look at this crazy woman who keeps mucking up the works!" She's only "brilliant" because they're telling you that she is.

Successfully turning the later head of Iran's intelligence agency? Realising Brody was dodgy in the first place when everyone else loved him? Getting him to confess and then get them to Abu Nazir? Realising that Brody wasn't guilty of the Langley bombing when the world thought he was? Making the Iranians look like idiots for taking him in?

That's five.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I actually found her romance with Brody compelling. It was so obviously bad for her, but she couldn't stop herself. Kind of a neat commentary on how we continue to do destructive things to ourselves even when we know they're not in our best interest.

[moderatevoter]

BUMP.

Is anyone watching Season 4? I've watched the first three episodes.