Showtime picks up two new series: Kristen Bell returns to TV!

Veronica Mars is back! Okay, not really. We're still bitter about the underrated series getting canceled in 2007 (we'll get over it someday, but today is not that day) -- but we're glad to see star Kristen Bell back where she belongs, on our television screens.

Bell stars in "House of Lies," a new Showtime series that was picked up today. She'll work opposite Don Cheadle in the half-hour workplace comedy based on the book "House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Tell You the Time." It also stars Ben Schwartz, Josh Lawson, Dawn Oliveri, Glynn Turman, and Donis Leonard, Jr.

Showtime also ordered episodes of one-hour drama "Homeland," starring Claire Danes as a CIA officer and Damian Lewis as a potentially shady soldier with ties to Al Quaeda. It's based on the Israeli drama "Prisoners of War."

According to the press release, Danes' character believes "the intelligence that led to the rescue of Scott Brody, a U.S. soldier who had been missing and presumed deal for nine years, was a setup and may be connected to an Al Qaeda plot to be carried out on American soil."