Star Trek** screenwriter and fanboy punching bag du jour (some jours, at any rate), Damon Lindelof is either one of Hollywood's most prolific and successful screenwriters or a man who refuses to rest on his lack of laurels, depending on what side of the enraged-blogger divide you sit. HBO is firmly in the former camp, commissioning his Peter Berg-directed pilot for The Leftovers into a ten-part miniseries.
The Leftovers is Lindelof's first TV project since Lost, a co-creation with **Election **and **Little Children **writer Tom Perrotta adapted from his novel of the same name. It's set in a post-apocalyptic world, albeit a rather unusual one in which a Rapture, biblical or otherwise, has removed the 'wheat' and left the chaff behind to fend for themselves.
The setting is the suburban community of Mapleton. There, a hundred townsfolk have suddenly disappeared after the mysterious happening. Among those left behind are a police chief (Justin Theroux), his wife (Amy Brenneman), a local cult leader (Ann Dowd), one of the women it's zeroing in on (Liv Tyler), and the town's tabloid editor (Christopher Eccleston).
No word on airing date in the US as yet. We do know that Lindelof will be showrunning and exec-producing along with Perrotta, Berg, Sarah Aubrey, Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger.