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b'By Alana Pedalino\\nVoice recording by THE great Andy Duke\\n\\nThe Leftovers has gone stale. Though the HBO series\\u2019 second season has garnered positive reviews so far, I ain\\u2019t buying what HBO is selling. It\\u2019s not that the show is bad \\u2013 HBO wouldn\\u2019t have greenlit it if it was. However, after a lukewarm first season that withheld action and information until its ninth episode or so, I had expectations for the second season to be different and elicit more growth from its main characters. Unfortunately, all that seems to be different is the setting and the directors\\u2019 choice to include more racial diversity in some not-so-subtle casting decisions.\\n \\nActually, subtlety is a weak point for The Leftovers. The show tries so hard to be bizarre and symbolic and it just doesn\\u2019t work. It has plenty of opportunities to be surrealist and clever, but misses out on most of them. That combined with the utter joylessness of the show and all of its characters makes this show a pretty depressing watch. Don\\u2019t get me wrong, it\\u2019s understandably a depressing premise \\u2013 2 percent of the world\\u2019s population vanishes for Pete\\u2019s sake. But a show like that needs to provide redemption in either answers or its characters; The Leftovers provides neither.\\n \\nTake a listen and hopefully you\\u2019ll understand.'