The Leftovers is Lost’s do-over
I was a huge fan of Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen series in 2019, so I decided to check out his HBO series The Leftovers.
Back in the aughts I stuck with Lost after it’s impressive first season all the way to its “wait, that’s it?” ending. Lindelof was one of Lost’s creators and it’s co-showrunner through the end. My theory as to why the show suffered, particularly in later seasons, is that it wasn’t a good fit for broadcast television, which demands 22-episode seasons and keeps a series going until it wanes in popularity. For example, Grey’s Anatomy debuted the year after Lost and is still going after more than 400 episodes.
Lost was a Mystery Box show that was forced to expand beyond its central mystery in order to fill six seasons and in doing so took the narrative in some awkward directions to move the plot forward (e.g. time travel, the flash forwards, the others and then the other others). Then when it was time for the series to end the writers made sure to bring all of the character arcs to satisfying conclusions, but failed to bring the various mysteries introduced to a coherent end. The only unifying explanation seemed to be that the island was supernatural in nature, so a bunch of weird shit happened.
The Leftovers follows the Lost playbook in a number of familiar ways, starting with the central mysterious supernatural plot device, in this case a “rapture” event in which 2% of the world’s population disappears. Most of the episodes are very character-driven, typically focusing on a single character and explaining their motivation after they did something that seemed irrational in a prior episode. The series often introduces new mysteries, some of which are eventually resolved, some of which are not.
But in the case of The Leftovers, Lindelof only has to map out the story over the course of 28 episodes vs Lost’s 121, so nothing feels injected in the former simply to fill screen time the way it did in the latter. Also the show starts two years after the series’ defining event and mostly focuses on how this world has been affected by it, as opposed to a challenge to be overcome like Marvel’s “snap.”
As I approached the series’ end, I prepared myself for an unsatisfying conclusion knowing that I was on another ride designed by Lost’s architect. Fortunately season three’s plot is largely resolved in the penultimate episode (in a manner that is only semi-coherent, but feels satisfying given the nature of the show). The finale then head-fakes to a Lost-like non-sensical conclusion but then offers up a lovely explanation as to how the story ended up here, before finally providing context to the show’s central mystery that, while far from comprehensive, sheds just enough light on it to make me feel gratified.
The Leftovers’ improvement over Lost is a perfect demonstration why there is so much quality television now. The network TV model rigid timetable and push for quantity over quality is stifling for creativity, which has driven top talent towards the steamers. When showrunners are allowed to wait until the scripts are ready and end a show when the story they set out to tell is complete, the end result is far better for the creators and the fans.
Though I’m not sure that the alternative-history, HBO-produced version of Lost would have told us what the fuck was up with that island.
