Since 2011, the Showtime TV series Homeland has fictionalized America's anxiety about the age of terrorism that we live in.

The show was at times utilized plot devices that border on, well, the absurd.

In the second season, a group of terrorists decided to assassinate the vice president.

What made things interesting and a little ridiculous was the way that they tried to kill the

vice president. Instead of using bullets or bombs, the terrorists hacked right into the vice

president's pacemaker.

Walden has a bad heart.

Self?

His pacemaker can be wirelessly accessed with that number.

I don't mean to be a spoiler, but by sending the wrong electrical signal to the vice president's heart, the hackers succeeded.

They killed the second most powerful man in the country by using nothing more than a bunch of computer commands.

God, God. by using nothing more than a bunch of computer commands. I don't think so.

I'm killing you.

I'm killing you. TV critics were not impressed with the episode.

Michael Hogan at the Huffington Post wrote,

I just finished watching the new episode of Homeland,

and boy, are my suspicion of disbelief muscles tired. But there was someone else watching that episode who was far less dismissive,

former vice president, Dick Cheney. Cheney's had a long history of hard trouble and

uses a pacemaker himself. He later told CBS News that that episode wasn't that far-fetched at all.

I was aware of the danger, if you will, that existed, but I found it credible because I knew

that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible. Cheney later turned off the wireless

connection to his pacemaker.

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