Homeland season 7 production moving to Virginia; who’s returning?
Today, Showtime confirmed that the Claire Danes – Mandy Patinkin series will be shifting production to Virginia after spending season 6 filming in New York City. Before that, the series spent several years overseas. Coming stateside allowed the cast to be home for a substantial period of time, but also gave it an opportunity to discuss home-grown terrorism in a way that was gritty and real. That’s obviously something that is more difficult to do when the show is overseas.
Joining Danes and Patinkin for sure as regulars for the new season are Elizabeth Marvel and Linus Roache; with the ominous way that season 6 ended at the White House, it makes sense that the show would head closer to Washington DC for filming. It’s fairly common for Washington-set shows to use locations in Maryland and Virginia to reflect Washington, given that filming in the nation’s capital for long periods of time is expensive. Can you imagine government officially really signing off on camera crews hovering around?
In a statement, executive producer Alex Gansa had the following message to pass along on the decision to shift filming south this year:
“We’re thrilled to bring the production of Homeland to the great state of Virginia … Its cities and neighborhoods and people will surely provide a rich backdrop for our story, and we in turn aim to provide a small but hopefully significant boost to the local economy.”
Does this mean another new setting for season 8?
We do think that it’s possible, given the fact that this is something that feels almost like an annual tradition. Season 8 may also be the final one for the show, and that is something else that you’ve gotta think about at this point. This is a show that technically could go on forever given that there are always going to be issues plaguing this country that Gansa and company can discuss. There’ll probably plenty of time still to discuss the earlier premiere further; it’s probably not something that Showtime wants to commit too much to one way or another to anything just yet. With a show that is based this much on events that are happening in the present, it does make a good bit of sense for them to start to work things around in a way in which they see what’s happening six or eight months from now before starting to make that decision.
So long as the upcoming seasons are as strong as what we saw during season 6, we have a feeling that we’re going to be rather satisfied in the end.
Time for your thoughts
Do you think that the Homeland season 7 production shift is going to make the show even stronger, and what are you hoping for in terms of the story? Be sure to share now in the attached comments!
Meanwhile, head over here in the event you do want to get some further news when it comes to the show. (Photo: Showtime.)