‘The Leftovers’ Won The Summer Thanks To The Power Of Hate-watching

Written By Unknown on Senin, 08 September 2014 | 20.49

We were misled about what HBO's supernatural drama, The Leftovers would entail. We were duped last spring by the show's dark and gritty promos while waiting for Game of Thrones to start. We were tricked into thinking the series would be intellectual: "140 million people go poof one day without any rhyme or reason — what a concept!" We were also blinded by Justin Theroux's perfect cheekbones and that muscly back in that familiar black-and-white still of him distressfully punching a concrete wall. Turns out, The Leftovers wasn't anything we expected or wanted it to be in the worst way, and thus, won the summer by being the highest-quality hatewatch, arguably ever.

When you think of hate-watching, you think of shitty reality shows you indulge in while half in the bag. For me, my hate-watches include Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars, Bad Girls Club, and other low-brow TV you'll find on VH1 and Oxygen. It works because I sit down knowing exactly what I'll be in for: upper-class trash fighting just to fight, horrendous talking-head segments, and poor production value. Give me more! These series get renewed and are often granted spin-offs precisely because they satisfy what people like me expected: they're bad, but they're so, so good.

Which is why the success of The Leftovers is truly one-of-a-kind for premium cable primetime. The show started out crappy, stayed crappy for a while, finally gained momentum half-way through the series, and ulimately left us feeling as if nothing really happened after every "good" episode. If a show is still subpar after the first three episodes, people usually throw in the towel and find something else to watch, simple as that. Which is why shows like Stephen Merchant's Hello Ladies, Chris O'Dowd's Family Tree, and Lisa Kudrow's The Comeback slowly but surely died after just one season each. The blogosphere however, continuously touted why they "aren't giving up just yet" on The Leftovers and the numbers prove it. The series has pulled in a cool 8 million viewers since its premiere, including telecast and VOD platforms like HBO Go. These are above-average numbers for a series people generally can't stand, considering the beloved True Detective pulled in 11 million.

On August 13th, after the show's seventh week on air, HBO renewed The Leftovers for a second season. The reason it didn't fall to the same fate as Hello Ladies or The Comeback? We gave it all of the ratings it needed by waiting for something to happen week after week, then complaining about it via the web, and infecting others to give it a try and see what all the fuss is about.

Last night's finale was the perfect leg up for Season Two, but will the hate-watching continue next summer? Did loyal haters just want to make it to the end of Season One? The latter seems more probable because we've come out of this one smarter. Though it's certain HBO will try to trick us again with all of those dark and sexy promos next spring, we'll be ready for them, and by then, we'll know better.

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Photos: HBO


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