English Entertainment
‘The Leftovers’ to premiere exclusively on HBO Defined
MUMBAI: After the huge success of Game of Thrones Season 4, HBO is all set to treat Indian audiences to one of the most anticipated drama series titled THE LEFTOVERS. When 2% of the world’s population abruptly disappears without explanation, the world struggles to come to terms with what happened. With so many questions left unanswered, three years later, THE LEFTOVERS is the story of the people who didn’t make the cut. Premiering within a week of the US premiere, the new HBO Original Series THE LEFTOVERS debuts with its ten-episode first season on Sunday, July 6 at 7:45 pm, exclusively on HBO Defined, 100% ad-free, followed by other episodes on subsequent Sundays at 8:00 p.m.
This new HBO mysterious drama series has been created by Damon Lindel of (Emmy® winner for “Lost”) and acclaimed novelist Tom Perrotta (Academy Award® nominee for “Little Children”; “Election”). The series premiere is directed by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights), who also serves as executive producer of the series.
Based on Perrotta’s bestselling novel of the same name, THE LEFTOVERS is an original look at The Rapture…or was it The Rapture at all? Set in a small New York suburb, the intimate family drama focuses on the residents of the fictional town of Mapleton, whose preconceptions are shattered in the wake of a global event dubbed “The Sudden Departure.” Three years after the fateful day when 140 million people disappeared without a trace, the series focuses on the ways ordinary people react to inexplicable events that can unite or divide families and communities, examining how their untold grief and the strain of an unprecedented calamity can turn faith into cynicism, paranoia, madness or cult-like fanaticism.
At the heart of THE LEFTOVERS is the Garvey family. Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux), the town’s beleaguered chief of police and father of two, is trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy when the notion no longer applies. While Kevin and his rebellious daughter, Jill (Margaret Qualley), try to go back to the way things used to be, Kevin’s son, Tom (Chris Zylka), sees the event as a wakeup call to take action. At the same time, Kevin is faced with the conflict between the townspeople of Mapleton and the Guilty Remnant, a mysterious cult-like group that seems to offer an escape for traumatized residents.
In addition to Theroux (“Mulholland Drive”; HBO’s “John Adams” and “Six Feet Under”), series regulars include: Amy Brenneman (“Private Practice”) as Laurie, a mother with a successful career who felt all she could do was surrender after the Departure; Christopher Eccleston (“28 Days Later”) as Reverend Matt Jamison, who thinks he knows exactly what the Departure was and wasn’t, and is committed to renewing the town’s faith; Liv Tyler (“The Lord of the Rings”) as Meg, who has serious doubts about her impending wedding; Chris Zylka (“The Amazing Spider-Man”) as Tom Garvey; Margaret Qualley as Jill Garvey; Carrie Coon (“Gone Girl”) as Nora Durst, who lost her entire family in the Departure; Emily Meade (HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire”) as Aimee, Jill’s friend and the big sister she never had; Amanda Warren (“The Adjustment Bureau”) as Mayor Lucy Warburton; Ann Dowd (HBO’s “True Detective”) as Patti, a Guilty Remnant leader; Michael Gaston (“The Mentalist”) as Dean, a stranger who could be Kevin’s greatest ally, or a force to be reckoned with; Max and Charlie Carver (“Teen Wolf”) as Adam and Scott Frost, twins who forge a friendship with Jill and Aimee; and Annie Q (“The Rewrite”) as Christine, a follower of Holy Wayne and object of Tom’s interest.
The executive producers of THE LEFTOVERS are Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta along with Peter Berg and Sarah Aubrey while Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger are co-executive producers of the show, with Lindelof serves as showrunner. The series is produced for HBO by White Rabbit in association with Warner Bros. Television.
Premiering within a week of its US premiere, the first season of THE LEFTOVERS airs in India on Sunday, July 6 at 7:45pm on HBO Defined. HBO Defined presents a 100% Ad-Free experience for viewing back to back episodes of THE LEFTOVERS – season 1 in HD quality and Dolby surround sound. Be prepared to get hooked to this highly anticipated drama series!
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
