Showtime Doubles Homeland Season 4 Premiere to Two Hours, Moves Up The Affair

Showtime Homeland Season 4 premiere two hours

Showtime wants Homeland Season 4 to get off on the right foot after a rocky third outing so they’re literally doubling down on the season premiere.

The pay network today announced the Homeland Season 4 premiere will span two hours, or back-to-back one-hour episodes, a first for the series. Both all-new episodes will air on October 5.


By moving up the second episode of Homeland Season 4 a week, Showtime was also able to shift The Affair extramarital series premiere starring Dominic West and Joshua Jackson to the following Sunday, October 12. The new drama’s original premiere date was originally expected to fall on October 19 or possibly later.

“In the aftermath of Homeland’s stunning finale last season, there is such strong anticipation for the start of season four that we wanted to give Homeland fans an extra generous helping of Carrie and company,” stated Gary Levine, Showtime Executive Vice President of Original Programming in the announcement. “Once we decided to premiere Homeland with a double episode, it made sense to use the momentum of that event to launch our newest series, The Affair, the very next week on October 12.”

Season 3 of Homeland alienated many of the show’s fans after a four-episode ruse knocked the wind out of the series. Viewers also felt the Brody (Damian Lewis) story dragged out far too long, and Carrie’s (Claire Danes) struggles with her mental disorder were wearing thin. Despite harsh reactions to the creative twists and a sluggish pace, the Season 3 finale scored 2.9 million total viewers during two airings — a series record.

Showtime is unofficially rebooting Homeland for Season 4 as a now completely lucid Carrie is assigned to man a CIA station in Pakistan while her child, fathered by Brody, remains with her family in the States. Rupert Friend, Mandy Patinkin, Nazanin Boniadi and Tracy Letts are all returning.

Homeland Season 4 is shooting on location in South Africa, which is subbing for Pakistan.

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