“Homeland” nearing two-season renewal, won't return until 2017

PanARMENIAN.Net - There's good news and bad news for "Homeland" fans. The series starring Claire Danes is close to scoring two-season renewal from Showtime. The network's CEO David Nevins said on Wednesday, June 1 that they're in final talks with Fox 21 Television Studios to pick up the show for a seventh and eighth season with the female lead Danes and showrunner Alex Gansa returning for the next installments, AceShowbiz reports.

However, we have to wait a little longer than expected for the sixth season. The show's return has been pushed back to 2017, as filming on the sixth season won't begin until August this year in New York, AceShowbiz said. The show usually kicked off production in late spring. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter the drama took an unusual long break to give showrunner and co-creator Gansa as well as the writing team more breathing room to prepare for the sixth season.

"Just because I'm not thinking that far ahead doesn't mean Alex Gansa and his team aren't," said Nevins of the two-season renewal. "It's changing itself pretty dramatically each season. I think more than most, this show has an open-ended expiration date. That said, I've been focused on getting this deal done and not really asking what happens beyond this deal," he added, stressing that it didn't necessarily mean the show would end with the eighth season.

The sixth season will bring the show back to American soil. Gansa said in May that it would take "place between Election Day in November and the inauguration of a new president in January." According to Showtime's release, "It's a strange, transitional time in the halls of government filled with anxiety and different competing interests, where a very fragile and complex transfer of power takes place between the outgoing president and the incoming president-elect."