Among the crop of new HBO shows that will be premiering soon is The Leftovers, a new project from Lost writer Damon Lindelof. During the show’s Television Critics Association Press tour panel in Pasadena on Thursday, Lindelof chatted about the new show and explained why he suddenly left Twitter in October.
The Leftovers is set to star Justin Theroux, Liv Tyler, Amy Brenneman, Emily Meade and more as the citizens of a small town after 2 percent of the earth’s population suddenly disappears. The show focuses on the people who are left in a new world, but Lindelof says that the show isn’t interested in the why, but rather how these people live knowing that they are still on earth.
“Hopefully what you're going to care about when you watch the show more and more is how these characters are dealing with this situation in terms of living in this world and interacting with each other and less about about what happened and where everybody went and why,” Lindelof explained, reports The Hollywood Reporter. Although, he added, some if the characters are still going to be searching for answers, which means some mysteries will be solved.
Lindelof said that the show will be different from other sci-fi projects like Lost or FlashForward, where the audience is going to expect definitive answers for everything. “This show ... [is] not actively searching for what happened in the departure,” he said of Leftovers. “They're actively searching for what they're supposed to do in their lives.”
He also promised that the show does move forward from the pilot, so don’t expect it to go over the same territory each week.
Lindelof also touched on his surprising decision to leave Twitter in October. He was one of the most active Twitter users in Hollywood, but suddenly stopped, writing an unfinished tweet that read, “After much thought and deliberation, I’ve decided t.” Although Oct. 14 is actually the date of ‘The Departure’ in the show, Entertainment Weekly notes that Lindelof didn’t plan it as a publicity stunt for the show.
He said the idea for the final tweet came from one of his first meetings with his Leftovers writing team. They hashed out ideas for how he could end his Twitter presence.
“And somebody said, ‘Oct. 14 is in two days! You should just quit and then your last tweet you should cut it off right in the middle so it seems very abrupt. And then don’t tell anybody but later on it will become apparent,’” he said. “That said, me leaving Twitter was not a marketing stunt for the benefit of The Leftovers it was just a happy accident. I have no intention of coming back.”
The Leftovers is based on Tom Perrotta’s novel and is set to start this summer.
image: Wikimedia Commons
