'The Leftovers' Creator Damon Lindelof On Why The Show Was Destined For Aus

"It was always leading to here." That's what Damon Lindelof, creator of the acclaimed, provocative HBO series The Leftovers, claims when he talks about the show's relocation to Australia for its third and final season.

Speaking to The Music last year in Melbourne, where the series had established its base camp while filming in locations in the city, around Victoria and interstate, the screenwriter and producer said he didn't want to "talk specifically" about how the story of The Leftovers brought its characters Down Under but he did state that "the beachhead of The Leftovers has been here for some time".

"One of the characters - Kevin Garvey, Sr, played by Scott Glenn - left for Australia sometime during season two of the show," says Lindelof, whose credits include Prometheus, Tomorrowland and, of course, co-creating the TV series Lost. "He's been wandering the continent, and his journey culminates in the Melbourne area at around the same time the rest of the show is colliding with him.

"But I don't really want to get into the specifics of how and why that happens," he adds with a smile.

"I think The Leftovers built a reputation - one it deserved - for being sad and intense and sometimes depressing and despairing."

That may be frustrating, but fans of The Leftovers have perhaps come to expect a little mystery from the series, mainly because it poses some thorny questions about human nature and behaviour in the face of unimaginable change. In many instances, the show leaves it up to the viewer to determine their own response to the action, rather than offering an easy answer or tidy resolution.

The series explores the aftermath of the Sudden Departure, an unexplained event that saw 2% of the world's population vanish without a trace. The people left behind must carry on, all the while wondering where these people have gone, why they've gone and what it all means to the people who have remained. Needless to say, things get complicated - emotionally, psychologically and metaphysically.

Season two of The Leftovers saw the show relocate from New Jersey to Texas, a move that enabled the introduction of new characters, a change in the show's visual palette and a tonal and thematic shift in the storytelling. The even greater relocation in season three allowed for an even greater leap, but one that was in keeping with the overarching ideas at play in the series.

"One of the really interesting things we've had is that when we were talking about moving the show to Texas in season two, we were also talking about how we wanted the show to feel," says Lindelof.

"I think The Leftovers built a reputation - one it deserved - for being sad and intense and sometimes depressing and despairing. We didn't want to apologise for that but we did feel there were other flavours we could start working into our central ideas. And that led us towards Australia. This season is about a journey from one place to another, and that journey takes place in Australia. The characters are moving to a common destination."

Part of the reason for The Leftovers' shift to Australia stemmed from the show's creative team drawing inspiration from a variety of Australian films - The Last Wave, Walkabout, Picnic At Hanging Rock and Wake In Fright were a few name-checked by Lindelof.

"There's something about those movies that asks, 'Am I losing my mind? Is that even a bad thing?" he says. But something else the shift in location enables is an exploration of how the world outside America has perceived and reacted to the Sudden Departure - if it's even called that elsewhere.

"We always assumed it was a global event and one that had repercussions in the same way but there may be different permutations of that," says Lindelof. "It's in the global collective consciousness. But there's a running joke that the Americans all refer to it as October 14th and the Aussies are, 'Actually, it's the 15th". Or, you know, the Sudden Departure is called something different in France."

Still, the focus remains squarely on the characters through whom the audience has experienced the dizzying, disorienting feeling of life in a changed world, and Lindelof says there'll be a resolution. "The challenge we're facing, in addition to what the ending of this story feels like, is that we're doing it in eight episodes, and we already have this amazing ensemble," he says. "We couldn't introduce any new characters too much. The first four episodes are designed to set the story we're telling; with the final four, they're like curtain calls for these characters."

The Leftovers returns to Showcase (through Foxtel) 20 Apr.