M-Net has scored another great new TV title and this one is going to the M-Net channel (DStv 101): Homeland - called ''the new 24'' is starting on the pay TV channel on Wednesday 18 April at 20:30.
I heard yesterday from the pay TV broadcaster who told me that Homeland is coming after M-Net scooped the broadcasting rights for South Africa. The brilliant show (which I've already started watching) is a ''newer'' kind of 24 - packed with mysteries, suspense, hidden clues, action, and lots of drama revolving about family life, but also how to be a great professional and not come across as crazy.
Homeland centres around an American soldier, suddenly found after a few years in Iraq. He comes back and literally gets a hero's welcome. Yet a secret agent - who has a chip on the shoulder and is a bit crazy because of 9/11 - got a tip that an American soldier has been turned during captivity and is now working for an extremist terrorist organisation.
Is the soldier who he appears to be and is she she just crazy for spying on him and trying to convice her one boss about a big terrorist plan? Or is the soldier, suddenly back in his family's life, secretly now against America?
Damian Lewis as the platoon sargeant who returns, Claire Daines as the CIA analyst, and Mandy Patinkin as her boss willing to go out on a limb and believe her, make Homeland true must-watch television.
Interestingly there's two concurrent trends taking place on the M-Net channel. Firstly, on the one hand M-Net (the channel) is continuing the way in which it's watering down and diluting its perceived brand value. The channel is fast losing what it once stood for, which was/is the best TV shows shown as quickly as possible. Once Upon a Time, The River, White Collar and other shows, and now even the Grammy Awards, are shows which in my opinion should actually be on, and belong on, M-Net as a channel.
More and more great stuff - which made M-Net distinctive content wise and solidifies its place as a premium channel - is trickling away.
Then the M-Net channel is also becoming more edgier and envelope pushing again. Remember when M-Net showed Eden, the late night risque tropical resort soap? That was decades ago. Also M-Net isn't and won't give viewers and go Spartacus Vengeance edgy (sadly that will never happen) there is a renewed focus on edgier and riskier fare - Game of Thrones, Shameless - which for a long time M-Net somewhat moved away from.
