THE LEFTOVERS: HBO's nondenominational post-rapture series

For sure, it's a lot easier to make movies where you don't have to explain anything to anyone's satisfaction. Maybe he's a Hollywood subversive!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0#t=24

needs more polar bears

would you guys shut up about this first episode already? you guys are talking about it too much, shut up

Anyway someone please fire whoever hired Max Richter and let him plonk away for the whole dang episode

i was about to watch this but i just read the thing lindelof wrote where he defends the lost finale by comparing himself to walter white

jk i wasn't about to watch this

Won't someone else please watch it. I feel like I watched it for nothing.

This reminds me of the time I watched The Cape.

i might watch it tonight unless I decide to watch s3 of the Killing

zing

There is an alternative. One can read the book, which I can attest with 100% certainly actually has an ending.

i watched it and I was really surprised by how much I like it!

i'm a sucker for peter berg, he makes me feel all the feels, idk. i like that no-one was standing around blurting exposition like a lot of pilots. just enough backstory to want to know more, everyone's fucked up just enough to want to see it get worse/better

also theroux is hott :)

This was good. Maybe it will start sucking later on. But maybe not!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/t31.0-8/10454229_10152158254685079_4782378481178547287_o.jpg

lol

telling myself that having a book with a written ending might guard against lindelof lindelofing this thing up

to which mr veg said "a book is just a thing he gets names out of"

:(

i'm a sucker for peter berg, he makes me feel all the feels, idk.

--set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl)

always wondered who bought all those tickets to BATTLESHIP...

AND PROUD OF IT

actually i saw it for free lol

Yeah, not bad. Not great, but not bad. Lead actress is Whoah nelly hotness. Theroux maybe overacting a bit. White clothes people creepy.

join a cult, chainsmoke

Pilot is ok, disconcerting American Beauty vibe will hopefully wear off.

Went to bed halfway through, it seemed all kinds of turgid.

This shit is no better than Under The Dome, it has been a watershed moment for me in that I have happily/apathetically watched tons of garbage series' over the last couple of years. But this one has lead me to an epiphany event hereafter I can't even switch off any more and accept shit like this as background ambience when I am on the exercise bike.

Every reviewer has pointed to episode 3 being far better than the first two, so I'll check that one out. And I liked the first few episodes, though the American Beauty vibe is pretty annoying.

That seems to be a thing for prestige U.S. cable: the first two or three episodes are often kinda eh. Which would be more tolerable if they weren't 10 or 13 ep seasons. Not a lot of room for slack.

Better than network, though, where the first one or two seasons often suck before a show hits its stride.

xpost No way is this as bad as "Undet the Dome"

so bad i can't even spell it

Yeah, tv-series are tough to get up and running, almost no series arrive fully formed. Don't think that is so weird, really, everybody - from the actors to the writing room - has to figure out what kind of show they are making. But I don't think these two episodes have been as boring and unfocused as for example Deadwood, it's just that the third episode is supposed to be really good.

wtf man first season of deadwood is magnificent

Had to try three times to get through... But once it clicked I loved it.

Sorry, completely off-topic.

Hey Frederik, sorry if this is an impertinent question. Are you a film student? Not trying to be an arse here, just asking a question out of genuine curiosity.

"Deadwood," one of my favorite shows of all time, I recall starts out strong enough, but I felt most confident recommending people stick it out at least to the shocking death (ep 4) and then certainly to the Kristen Bell episodes (7 and 8). I told folks, basically, even if you don't like it, or don't like it that much, just wait.

Hell, I need to rewatch "Deadwood."

I re-watched series 3 recently and enjoyed it more than the first time, it is a brilliant series and I still wish there was something as good as it now.

I don't think these two episodes have been as boring and unfocused as for example Deadwood, it's just that the third episode is supposed to be really good.

― Frederik B, Wednesday, July 9, 2014

no matter how many times I read this I can't get it to make sense. is it just that deadwood shits on this vague muddle from such a great height that the turds haven't even landed yet?

i mean don't get me wrong imma keep watching and i'll be happy if it gets more focused and/or interesting because hey "THE ICE STORM meets LOST but with mystery bagels instead of polar bears" sounds pretty good to me...

lol mystery bagels

i am going to put $10 on that being "lindelof flair"

Hey Frederik, sorry if this is an impertinent question. Are you a film student? Not trying to be an arse here, just asking a question out of genuine curiosity.

― festival of labour (xelab), 10. juli 2014 03:05 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nope, way off. Cultural studies. ;) And I'm done.

If there is an ending set for this, which should be a requisite for a Lindelof series, plus the fact that it's based on a book, how many seasons are we taking? Don't the writers have to have that planned out like, before the show starts? I mean that's one of the reasons true detective was so satisfying. A set end.

Well, in this case, I think a set ending would work against the feel of the series. Kinda like with Walking Dead. It's supposed to be a never-ending nightmare.

L O S T had a set end, and where did that get us?

So did people see last nights episode? It was... something.

"Lead actress is Whoah nelly hotness" who is this then? Liv Tyler?

last night was great.

andie mcdowell's daughter

andie mcdowell isn't on the show but I guess you're talking about the teenager

oh she actually is andie mcdowell's daughter, I see

ep was indeed something. no mystery bagels, just mysterious ways. nice and tight. felt like an old twilight zone or something.

That is the second time Eccleston has played a character who finds a large stash of money and takes it into a casino to put it all on red. Referring to the episode of Jimmy McGovern's Accused from a few years back.

Is this worth watching? It's difficult to tell from this thread.

it's difficult to tell from the first 3 episodes of a show! i would say 'yes,' though, i'm sticking with it to see what happens.

seems like so far the worst thing anyone has to say about the show is that Lindeloff is involved

I'd watch the series again just for the ending, which I won't spoil here of course but I thought was one of the better ones.

oh yeah, forgot about the event you mention there voodoo chili, lol. good call.

clemenza, yes they are deserving of sympathy in the context of the show. when i posted last night i was honestly thinking about trumpism and the reactive "burn it down" attitude that comes from desperation, in contrast to finding a path forward that continues to grasp at values, make meaning out of suffering, believe that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. i was on a bit of a flight of fancy and in the light of day the GR is at best an imperfect comp for the destructive death cult of trumpism but that's where my head was at. poignant either way

No, there are times when the GR have a strong Trump vibe too. Thinking in particular of the Jan. 6-like chaos they create at the bridge to finish S2 (aired even before Trump takes office the first time).

the show long ago left the idea that we'd get some 'this means this' sort of puzzle type solution; I don't expect an answer about 'where people went' or 'what is going on' and haven't since season 2. That was quite liberating for this show, I think; but I can see how, if someone expects those types of plot manipulations, they'd be disappointed.

― akm, Wednesday, May 31, 2017 10:48 AM (seven years ago)

this post from a few days before the series finale aired is otm times a million. i think about this a lot. thinking about it now in the context of severance season 2, which i thought was good but nowhere near great, and i think that show's growing compulsion to unravel its own mysteries has a lot to do with that. letting the mystery be can indeed be quite liberating, but it's also incredibly hard to do, for a million reasons both internal and external to any given show, and i appreciate the leftovers' commitment to its own mystery more and more with every passing year.

I thought of The Leftovers a few times during Severance, including at least three specific points of overlap (will save them for an upcoming Zoom). Agree totally with your evaluation of Severance S2 as good-not-great; I think The Leftovers is the superior show to this point.

Severance comes from more of a Dickian Sci-fi tradition than the Leftovers, which is more explicitly a parable or fable - I think it's fair for the audience to expect more in the way of solid explanations from the former.

TIL the show was based on a book??? How did I completely miss that.

Tom Perrotta co-created the series, too. (Haven't read the novel.)

Possibly the only case where the show improved after the source material ran out

I think my friend told me S1 covered the novel, S2 and S3 were written for television.

Yeah. I think the book’s author was involved in the later seasons but they’re not based on books.

I've been checking around periodically for this the past couple of years:

https://i.postimg.cc/BQRhvC66/may.jpg

If you know the show, you should recognize that...Some ridiculously overpriced issues posted on eBay and Amazon--by people who presumably do know the show--but finally found a copy for $15 (all the '72 issues for that, actually) from a seller only 45 minutes away from me, so I get to avoid shipping too. Finally, I will understand.

"periodically" yuk yuk

Ha--a brilliant pun to go along with my Yogi-ism yesterday.

Happy 80th, Yogi!