Homeland Star Anchors The Tonight Show

Two hours after resuming her Emmy-winning role as Carrie Mathison on Homeland (SoHo, 8.30), Claire Danes appears on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon (Prime, 10.30), when she joins fellow guest JK Simmons and the host in a sketch that spoofs news anchors.

Expect Danes to also promote season six of Homeland, which already has been renewed for two more seasons.

For the first time, the series will be set in New York City, not because of a national security connection but because Danes wanted to spend more time with her family, The Guardian reports.

“Claire had been on the road for a while and she was ready to get home, which for her was New York. So that’s how we ended up there,” executive producer Chip Johannessen says.

“We had to reverse engineer the show to a location for the first time.”

According to The Guardian, “The writers struggled with how they could make New York the right backdrop for the show, which has previously been centered in DC, Pakistan and Berlin.

“The CIA, which Danes’ protagonist Carrie Mathison is no longer part of, is less of a focal point. Instead, the team felt that the current state of affairs in America could provide the right thematic notes …

“Moving the show’s location every season, which is currently renewed through to season eight, has allowed for these big shifts in storytelling.

“It lets the producers and writer take on new themes each year and to build on previous narratives without repeating them, which feels important in today’s television landscape.”

In an interview with Deadline Hollywood, executive producer Alex Gansa says he is building Carrie’s story towards a conclusion.

“Barring unforeseen world events, we do really hope to go abroad for the last two seasons and to end the story there.

“We also hope to get Carrie back into the intelligence agency business. She’s been out of it now for two seasons and I think it’s time that she goes back into the fold and then winds up doing her job overseas somewhere.”

Meanwhile, the week’s other Tonight Show guests include:

• Michael Strahan, Bryce Dallas Howard and Bebe Rexha (10.35 Tuesday);
• Michael Keaton, Nina Dobrev and The XX (11.40 Wednesday);
• James McAvoy, Nick Offerman and Kings of Leon (10.30 Thursday);
• Aziz Ansari, Carrie Brownstein and Panic! at the Disco (12.30am Saturday).