LOS ANGELES – In "The Leftovers," debuting Sunday on HBO, 2 percent of the world's population disappears on Oct. 14, a possible sign that the Rapture has taken place.
On that same date last year, co-creator Damon Lindelof made a departure of his own.
The man largely responsible for steering "Lost" abruptly abandoned his hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers and hasn't returned since to social media.
"Right around the time we started the writers' room up, I just felt like it was a good opportunity to dive in and focus on the show," Lindelof said. "Twitter is so entertaining, but also massively distracting. As far as promotion goes, I'm a whore that way. Leaving on that date just felt appropriately pretentious."
Lindelof has every reason to bet big on his latest effort.
The series has great potential, riding on the wave of the nation's obsession with apocalyptic story lines. But unlike "The Walking Dead" and "Fallen Skies," the citizens of a fictional New York suburb aren't fighting starving corpses or aliens. Three years after the great vanishing act, the enemies are their own psyches and nagging questions: Why were they left behind? Will their loved ones ever come back? And why have all the town's dogs turned into demons?
"The characters in the show are not actively searching for what happened in the departure," Lindelof said. "They're actively searching for what they're supposed to do in their lives. Hopefully, that's what the storytelling is going to echo."
While "Lost" was populated by relatively unknown actors, Lindelof has doubled down on well-known names both in front of and behind the camera. The cast includes Justin Theroux as a chief of police who has lost his wife and may be losing his mind; Amy Brenneman as a chain-smoking cult member who refuses to speak, and Liv Tyler as a troubled woman who bolts from her impending nuptials.
