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Showtime's eagerly awaited season 3 premier of their hit show Homeland has been leaked online, almost a month before the episode was supposed to air.

The leaked episode was made available on the usual BitTorrent indexers for download this week, even though it is missing the opening credits, and crucially, some special effects. For example, one shot simple shows a green screen with the word "crater" embedded on top, to be eventually replaced by a CGI shot of the aforementioned crater.

The incompleteness of the episode however has not stopped downloaders. Hundreds of thousands of users have already downloaded the episode.

The source of the leak is unconfirmed at the moment, although many speculate that this version is similar to the screener copy given to critics at July's Television Critics Association event. Another theory suggests that this workprint comes directly from whichever post-production company that managed to get a copy of the unfinished episode.

Showtime have not yet responded to the leak, and so it's unknown whether they will merely shrug off the incident and perhaps even welcome it in some ways as a way to promote the new season, or to treat the matter as a criminal concern and alert the relevant authorities. In 2009, the premature leak of an unfinished copy of Wolverine led to an arrest and an one year sentence for the uploader.

Homeland season 3 premiers September 29 on Showtime.