Executive Producer of '24' Brings New Terror-Themed Drama 'Homeland' to Showtime

Claire Danes

Jack Bauer may be off the air, but Howard Gordon, the executive producer of “24,” is back in business with another psychological drama focusing on national security entitled “Homeland.”

The upcoming Showtime series is centered on a prisoner of war, American Sgt. Nicholas Brody (played by Damian Lewis) who disappeared nine years after the invasion of Baghdad and was presumed dead.

Later, Brody is retrieved from the basement of a safe house and is then brought home to great fanfare, reunited with his family, and regarded as an all-American hero.

But after learning of a POW who had turned to militancy, CIA agent Carrie Anderson (Claire Danes) begins to suspect that the great “hero” is not who everybody thinks he is. Subsequently, she proceeds to investigate her theory outside the standard operating procedures.

“It's an eye opener on one hand, because what does it mean to be a hero, a patriot, or a soldier? One man's soldier is another's man terrorist and those are some of the central questions.  We're looking at this guy, Brody, who, to the American public, is this great American hero, and to the establishment, he's actually groomed for political office. So this guy is someone who is a media darling and very much fits the mold of the American hero,” Gordon told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column.

“But to Carrie, he is a terrorist and she winds up surveiling him and listening to him without the proper legal warrant and does it off- book. There's some good soap opera here too because it turns out that his wife has been in a relationship with his best friend, who's also a member of his platoon.”

The pilot script also mentioned Osama Bin Laden’s death, which coincidentally took place while the show was filming.

And, in another coincidence, the show’s premiere falls on Sunday, October 2nd – less than a month after the ten-year anniversary of 9/11.

“It wasn't anything that was by design so it turned out to be relevant only to the context of how the show is watched. I do think the anniversary does give it a particular significance and it is very relevant,” Gordon continued. “The show lives very much in the shadow of 9/11.”

And while the“Homeland” team employed a marine consultant to supervise the set and consulted with the CIA over the script, Gordon tells Pop Tarts that the Pentagon probably wasn’t as enthusiastic about this production as they were about “24.”

“Obviously the very idea of a soldier who's been turned and becomes an enemy agent, an Al-Qaeda operative, is an incendiary one,” he explained. “I think the military, very understandably, would have a hard time wrapping their arms around that idea. We see things very close to home that have echoed this, the Fort Hood killings and such.”

A spokesperson for the Pentagon told us that “The Department of Defense was not involved in any way for the development or production of the Showtime's new series ‘Homeland.’”

Deidre Behar contributed to this report