It has been years since Nora Durst sat in that kitchen in Australia and told Kevin Garvey where she went—or didn't go—and honestly, most of us are still vibrating from it. The Leftovers wasn't just a TV show. It was a 28-hour panic attack about grief, belief, and the terrifying silence of a god who might not be there. Finding shows like The Leftovers is a nightmare because Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta built something that refused to give easy answers. Most "mystery box" shows want to tell you who did it. This show just wanted to know how you keep breathing when the world stops making sense.
You're probably looking for that specific feeling. That knot in your stomach. The Max Richter score swelling while someone does something completely irrational because they're heartbroken. You want the "sad weirdness."
The Spiritual Successors That Get the Vibe Right
If you want the existential dread mixed with high-concept sci-fi, you have to start with Station Eleven. It’s the closest anything has ever come to capturing that specific Leftovers DNA. Based on Emily St. John Mandel's novel, it deals with a post-pandemic world, but it isn't a zombie show. It's about art. It’s about how "survival is insufficient." Like the Sudden Departure, the Georgia Flu wipes out the world we know, but the story focuses on a traveling Shakespeare troupe twenty years later. It treats trauma with a softness that feels familiar. You'll recognize the non-linear storytelling and the way small, seemingly meaningless objects become sacred relics.
Then there’s Dark. This is for the people who liked the "puzzle" aspect of the Departure but wanted more internal logic. It’s a German Netflix original that starts with a missing child and ends with the collapse of time and space. It’s dense. It’s bleak. Rain is a constant character. While The Leftovers leaned into the "maybe it’s magic, maybe it’s a mental breakdown" ambiguity, Dark is mathematically precise. Every single piece fits. You’ll need a notebook. You’ll definitely need to watch it in the original German with subtitles because the dubbing loses the raw, throat-tightening grief of the performances.
Why Lost is (and isn't) the Answer
You can't talk about shows like The Leftovers without mentioning Lost. Damon Lindelof co-ran both, and you can see him learning from his mistakes in real-time. Lost is the messy, sprawling older brother. It has the same obsession with faith versus science. It has the "Man of Science, Man of Faith" dichotomy that Kevin and Matt Jamison would later perfect.
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But Lost got bogged down in the "how." It tried to explain the whispers and the polar bears and the smoke monster. The Leftovers succeeded because it looked the audience in the eye and said, "The 'how' doesn't matter, only the 'now' does." If you haven't revisited the Island recently, do it. Just ignore the urge to solve the mystery and focus on the character flashbacks. That's where the soul is.
The Weirdness of Small Town Limbo
Sometimes the itch you're trying to scratch isn't the apocalypse. It’s the feeling that something is fundamentally "off" with reality. Twin Peaks: The Return (Season 3) is the gold standard for this. David Lynch took the cozy, quirky murder mystery of the 90s and turned it into an eighteen-hour experimental film about the nature of evil. It is frustrating. It is slow. It features a sequence involving a nuclear blast and a convenience store that is the most Leftovers-adjacent thing ever aired on television.
If Lynch is too much, try The Resurrection or its French predecessor Les Revenants (The Returned). The premise is simple: dead people just start coming home. Not as zombies. They aren’t rotting. They’re just... back. They’re hungry for a sandwich and confused why their spouses have remarried. It captures that quiet, suburban horror of a world that has been broken by an impossible event.
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- Rectify: No sci-fi here, but if you loved the slow-burn character study of Kevin Garvey’s psyche, this is it. It’s about a man released from death row after 19 years. The world is alien to him. Every scene feels like it’s holding its breath.
- The OA: Brit Marling’s Netflix series is divisive. It’s weird. It involves interpretive dance as a way to travel dimensions. But it has that same earnest, "I'm going to tell you a story and you have to decide if I'm crazy" energy that made Nora Durst’s final monologue so haunting.
- Patriot: This is a weird recommendation, but hear me out. It’s on Amazon. It’s a "spy" show, but it’s actually a show about a man who is so depressed he can only express his feelings through folk songs. The cinematography is symmetrical and gorgeous, and the tone is a perfect mix of absurd comedy and crushing sadness.
Dealing with the "Let the Leftovers be the Leftovers" Problem
The truth is, a lot of people recommend The 100 or Manifest when people ask for shows like The Leftovers. Honestly? Don't bother if you want the emotional depth. Those are plot-driven shows. They are about "what happens next." The Leftovers was about "what happened then, and how do I live with it?"
You should look toward Six Feet Under. It’s a family drama about funeral directors, but it shares a cosmic DNA with Lindelof’s work. Every episode starts with a death. It forces you to look at the end of life with a sense of humor and a lot of tears. The finale of Six Feet Under is widely considered one of the best in history, much like the ending of The Leftovers. They both understand that the only way to deal with the big questions is to focus on the people standing right in front of you.
The Lindelof Evolution: Watchmen and Mrs. Davis
If it’s the writing style you miss—the "international assassin" weirdness—you have to follow the creator. Watchmen on HBO was a miracle. It took a "perfect" graphic novel and turned it into a story about generational trauma and American history. It has a giant squid rain. It has a blue god on Mars. But like The Leftovers, it’s actually just about a woman trying to find her place in a world that lied to her.
Mrs. Davis is his more recent swing. It’s about a nun fighting an AI that has taken over the world. It sounds ridiculous because it is. But by the final episode, it hits a chord of sincere, human emotion that feels exactly like a Season 2 episode of The Leftovers. It’s about our need for a "mother" figure and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.
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Actionable Steps for Your Next Binge
Don't just jump into the next show on autoplay. To get the most out of these "heavy" series, you have to approach them differently than a standard procedural.
- Check the "Vibe" First: Watch the first 10 minutes of Station Eleven. If the scene in the theater doesn't move you, move on to Dark. They are different flavors of "heavy."
- Subtitles Over Dubs: Especially for Dark or Les Revenants. The human voice carries the grief. Dubbing flattens the performance.
- Don't Google Theories: The fun of The Leftovers was the community theorizing, but since these shows are finished, you'll just spoil yourself. Let the mystery be.
- Pair with a Palate Cleanser: These shows are exhausting. If you watch three episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale (another great choice for the atmosphere), watch an episode of something light like Hacks or Ted Lasso afterward. Your brain needs the dopamine reset.
Start with Station Eleven. It is the most spiritual match for the "post-event" trauma you're looking for. If you find yourself missing the surreal, religious undertones, pivot immediately to Watchmen or The Young Pope. The Young Pope (and The New Pope) has that same lush, HBO-budget cinematography and a deep obsession with the silence of God. It's weirder than you think it is. Just remember: you aren't looking for an answer to where the 2% went. You're looking for a show that understands why you're still asking.