Showtime plots next programming moves

Gary Levin | USA TODAY

Showtime is mapping out its future.

With Dexter wrapping up its long run this summer and with new drama Ray Donovan, already renewed for a second season, fans can look forward to the third season of Homeland Sept. 29, joining the new Masters of Sex, starring Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan as pioneering sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson.

On Jan. 12, Shameless and House of Lies return for their typical winter runs, this time joined by Matt LeBlanc's Episodes. Californication shifts to April, where it will join Nurse Jackie, and soon after, new horror series Penny Dreadful, starring Josh Hartnett and Eva Green.

Showtime also has several pilots in the works, which in this case usually means new series, as the network has green-lit all of its last five pilots.

- Trending Down, stars Philip Seymour Hoffman in a "comedic examination about what it means to matter," says programming chief David Nevins, as "a man facing his own obsolescence after his advertising agency is taken over." Kathryn Hahn stars as his wife.

- The Affair, starring Dominic West (The Wire) and Ruth Wilson (Luther, The Lone Ranger), is "an intense an intimate exploration of two marriages and the affair that disrupts them."

- The Vatican marks the return of Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights), who plays a New York archbishop.

Donovan, starring Liev Schreiber as a Hollywood fixer, is Showtime's top series; its premiere episode last month drew a cumulative audience of 6.1 million viewers across all platforms, besting even the second-season start of Emmy-winning Homeland. The pay-cable network is now in 23 million homes.