LOS ANGELES (AP) - Long after the terrorist attacks on America, TV and film producers only tiptoed around certain hot-button issues, avoiding anything close to realism.
Now, four-plus years after 9/11, Showtime is breaking through full-bore with "Sleeper Cell" - a drama series about a group of Islamic extremists loose in Los Angeles.
When TV finally started to focus on domestic terrorism and Islamic extremism, it did so only "in a very cartoony, unrealistic way," says Ethan Reiff, co-executive producer of "Sleeper Cell." He and his producing partner, Cyrus Voris, decided to write their own series.
"Sleeper Cell," debuting Sunday at 10 p.m., attempts to look not only at the war against radical Islamic forces, says Reiff, but the war within the Muslim religion, too.
http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20051202/D8E88CUO7.html