No matter whom you plan on voting for this November, there’s one thing we can all agree on about President Obama: He has excellent taste in TV. The POTUS told People Magazine in December that Homeland — Showtime’s terrorist thriller starring Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, who grace the cover of EW’s Fall TV Preview this week — is one of two can’t-miss dramas on the White House DVR list (the other being HBO’s Boardwalk Empire). “We tend to be stunned over and over again by the response of the show,” says executive producer Alex Gansa. “Then all of a sudden the President of the United States says he’s stealing time away from Michelle and the kids to watch Homeland. It was just unbelievable.” Adds Showtime President David Nevins, “That was when we had gone to another level.”
This week’s cover of EW (click here to buy the issue) goes behind the scenes of Homeland‘s much-anticipated second season (premiering Sept. 30 at 10pm), which will continue the dysfunctional cat-and-mouse-game between bipolar CIA agent Carrie Mathison (Danes) and soldier/terrorist Nicholas Brody (Lewis). The pressure is on for Showtime’s hit series to deliver another round of episodes worthy of its Emmy-nominated first season, which ended with a gripping cliffhanger (“Issa!”) and so many questions: Will Carrie’s memory return? How long can Brody fly under the radar? Can Carrie ever rejoin the CIA? ”I think the reaction [to season 1] still feels outsized, and of course to me it only loads up the fear of the second season,” admits executive producer Howard Gordon. He jokes, “We say, ‘Take a deep breath and lower your expectations.’”
source: EW.com