All-pervading PC

Do not read this review if you haven’t seen the first series of Homeland.

Because I’m a lazy bastard I have recently taken to farming out my TV criticism responsibilities to Twitter. The other day, for example, I Tweeted the vexed question: ‘Should I get Homeland series one box set — or is it meh?’

‘Meh’, by the way — for those of you unfamiliar with modern yoofspeak — is the current fashionable term for ‘bland’, ‘so-so’, ‘so what?’, ‘neither here nor there’, ‘can’t be bothered’. Well, I say ‘fashionable’, though in fact it has been around since at least 1992 when Lisa first deployed it on an episode of The Simpsons.

The replies ranged from ones telling me that it was gripping, compulsive and essential viewing, to ones telling me it was irritatingly PC, a bit plodding and really not worth the effort. Which left me in a quandary till some kind soul Tweeted: ‘I’ll spare you the bother. Damian Lewis is al-Qa’eda.’

I think that’s what is known as a ‘spoiler’. Most of the first Homeland series, after all, revolved around the question of whether or not US Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) had been turned by the enemy during his six long years in captivity. Had I watched it, I’m pretty sure I would have guessed straight away. Lewis has given Brody a particularly unattractive kind of American accent — not a nice trustworthy one like he had when he played Major Winters in Band of Brothers but an evil, traitor-ish one.

Anyway, Homeland is back for a second season. The last one ended with Brody on the verge of pressing a detonator button only to be distracted at the last minute, thus saving the lives of hundreds of people and also handily paving the way for a brand-new series.