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HBO's The Leftovers

Mourning and Melancholy on Premium Cable

Eliot Borenstein author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Lexington Books

Published:6th Dec '23

Should be back in stock very soon

HBO's The Leftovers cover

This book unpacks and analyzes the central themes of sacrifice, melancholy, apocalypticism, and the nature of family and home in HBO’s The Leftovers to demonstrate the key role it played in the development of early twenty-first-century television. Eliot Borenstein argues that the story of The Leftovers is the most sustained exploration of loss ever to appear on American television and subverts the expectations of viewers who look to prestige dramas as puzzles to solve by providing no clear answers the mysteries most central to the show’s plot. Instead, Borenstein posits, the series endeavors to provide more nuanced and realistic portrayals of the melancholy that occurs when people’s lives are unmoored, leavening an inherently depressing experience with absurdity and moments of grace.

Few shows in the history of television have been as mesmerizingly brilliant as The Leftovers, and few have left viewers with as much to unpack, discuss, and contemplate long after their sudden departure. Borenstein does a wonderful job with these tasks, commemorating the show with a welcome, thoughtful companion.

-- Jonathan Gray, University of Wisconsin-Madison; author of Television Entertainment and Television Studies

ISBN: 9781666947571

Dimensions: 237mm x 160mm x 20mm

Weight: 454g

178 pages