The first trailer for upcoming Apple TV+ series Tehran delivers a healthy jolt of Homeland-style tension. The Israeli spy thriller, which centers on a female Mossad agent working undercover inside Iran, looks filled with dangerous scrapes, technical spycraft and some serious double-crosses.
Watch the trailer, which Apple released Tuesday, for yourself and see how it compares to Showtime hit Homeland:
Tehran stars Niv Sultan as Mossad agent Tamar Rabinyan. A female Jewish hacker born in Iran and raised in Israel, she returns to her homeland on a secret mission. Her goal? Take down Iranian air defenses so Israel can bomb a nuke plant.
Like Homeland’s Carrie Mathison (played by the outstanding Claire Danes), Tamar is a spy with a lethal mix of smarts and skills. And also like Carrie Mathison, she’ll be tangling with actor Shaun Toub, who heads Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in Tehran and also played a key role in Homeland.
Toub won’t be the only familiar face for Homeland fans, either. Actor Navid Negahban, who played al-Qaeda leader Abu Nazir in Showtime’s Emmy-winning spy series, also stars in Tehran.
Tehran: A ‘complicated’ spy story
Created by Moshe Zonder (Fauda), Dana Eden and Maor Kohn for an Israeli TV channel, Tehran drew criticism from Iranian leaders when it premiered in June in the Middle East.
Members of the creative team talk about the show in this video from the Associated Press:
In the AP video, Eden says that, despite being called a “Zionist show against the Iranian regime” by detractors, Tehran paints a balanced picture of the state of current events in Iran. “We don’t have bad guys and good guys in the show,” she says. “It’s more complicated.”
Cupertino snapped up international rights to Tehran earlier this year as it continues to flesh out the Apple TV+ roster. The streaming service costs $4.99 per month with a free seven-day trial.
Tehran comes to Apple TV+ on September 25. The eight-episode series is rated TV-MA and packs plenty of subtitles. (It’s in English, Hebrew and Farsi.)
