Damon Lindelof made both and has talked at length about the second as his answer to the criticism of the first. Lost trained an audience to expect that a mystery would be explained and then could not deliver; The Leftovers opens by telling you the central event will never be explained, and makes that refusal the subject. The machinery carries over intact, an ensemble revealed through single-character episodes and a community organised around an inexplicable event, with the promise removed on purpose.