‘Homeland’ mulls plot switch that takes focus off Middle East and Muslim terrorism

“Homeland,” the much-acclaimed television series about American intelligence agents who root out terror threats, is mulling a departure from its ordinary plot, which focuses on Middle Eastern Muslims, and considering — post Charlie Hebdo attacks — a new storyline that does not involve the radical Islamic element.

The show might go with a new type of threat “for creative reasons,” the show’s representatives said, the Daily Mail reported.

They also add that those reasons have nothing to do with the recent Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks in Paris, the newspaper reported.

At the same time, the show’s first four seasons all featured plots that wove through the Middle East, focusing on Muslim terrorists. The announcement for the potential change in plot for the fifth season comes right around the time Paris was under siege by Islamic terrorists who targeted the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, the same publication that was firebombed in 2011 after publishing a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. In all, 17 died in the days-long terror.

InsideTV reported that these attacks are not to play any role in “Homeland” creators’ storyline decisions — and show insiders are hoping that’s true.

“I hope [the Paris attacks] are not considered at all,” said David Nevins, the president of Showtime, the network that runs “Homeland,” InsideTV reported. “I really, really don’t want there to be any limitations. I don’t expect there will be. They never shied away from anything difficult. I want them to go right into the teeth of it again.”

The show’s running storyline of Middle Eastern terrorism has been controversial to some. The government of Pakistan decried the producers in December for portraying it as a safe haven for Taliban terrorists.

Alex Gansa, a show producer, told a Television Critics Association’s crowd that he was “not necessarily” sticking with the Muslim theme, but hadn’t yet decided, the Daily Mail reported.