So, about that Foundation TV show…
Apple TV’s adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s classic, millennia-spanning, galactic-scale sci-fi series is a mixed bag.
Now, I have to preface this by saying I have come into watching this show (almost) completely blind. I have not yet read the novels, though I do have the first Foundation book sitting on my shelf ready for when I finish my current read. I say "almost” because I am aware of Asimov’s writing style from my reading of I, Robot and I generally know the idea behind the novel series. But this blog post is going to be more of a postmortem of the first season of the show on Apple TV+ as it is, without getting too much into spoilers and without huge comparisons to the book. I got a free 6 months of Apple TV+ on my PS5 - so if you’ve got that console, it’s definitely worth taking a look while the offer lasts.
What is Foundation (the TV series)?
The Galactic Empire has ruled the galaxy for thousands of years from the high-tech city-planet of Trantor. The Emperor Cleon has, through use of a genetic dynasty of clones, remained in power since the earliest days of the Empire. There are always three: Brother Dawn, the youngest; Brother Day, the image of Cleon in his prime; and Brother Dusk, the elder.
On Trantor, Hari Seldon, a mathematician at the university, comes up with a new science called psychohistory, capable of predicting societal shifts on a galactic scale. It cannot predict down to the individual level, but analyses trends across great swathes of time. The problem: psychohistory foretells the imminent fall of the Empire. It is inevitable, and the only way to preserve humanity and its knowledge through the coming fall is to establish a Foundation from which humanity might rise again.
Perceiving a threat to their power, Empire exiles the nascent Foundation to the Outer Reach on the planet Terminus, and it is there that the Foundation must carry out its great work.
So let’s talk about it
At its core, Foundation is about the administration and the gradual fall of the Galactic Empire. From what I already know of Asimov’s writing and the book’s premise, making great leaps forward through time, this would typically come at the expense of character work. Asimov himself wasn’t great at writing characters; his strength was in the big concepts that he brought to the table. So I am pleased that the TV show really does let us focus on, and get emotionally invested in characters. It’s not pulled off perfectly, because we still have some of the leaping forward through time, which means we often get invested in some of the side characters, only to have them snatched out from under us by these leaps. And some of the ways in which some of the characters stick around through those leaps is a tad contrived, but I can see why it needs to be. What the show does extraordinarily well, however, is the storyline of the Emperor Cleon. I’m aware that these are largely new characters and a new concept made just for the show. The concept of the Genetic Dynasty sounds like something right out of Dune with the Bene Gesserit, but it works very well here to allow us to keep invested in these three unchanging characters across spans of time where others will have long gone.
There’s three main plot threads in Foundation: that of the aforementioned Genetic Dynasty, the story of Gaal Dornick as she works with Hari Seldon on the psychohistory project, and that of Salvor Hardin, the warden of the Foundation’s settlement on Terminus. Out of the three, I feel like Gaal’s is the weakest here. The best one by far is the Emperor’s, and Salvor Hardin’s attempts to protect the Foundation during what she perceives as its first crisis is great for its action but seems very basic given the premise of the show. Gaal’s is much more of a slow burn and she spends much of her screen time doing… not much, really. It’s a shame because she was the first character we’re introduced to as the “main” character, and also the narrator, so I would’ve liked her story to have been much more compelling. After having seen the season finale, we’re starting to get these disparate threads to link up, but I think we’ll be waiting a lot longer for the payoff on Gaal’s storyline.
One of the real positives of Foundation is its visuals. This is honestly a gorgeous series. Fantastic ship designs, amazing special effects, and well realised action. A note on the ships - I will absolutely applaud this series for going along the lesser-taken route with advanced spacecraft and making them take account of the expanded degrees of freedom in space - ships don’t have to look like long horizontal freighters that travel along their smallest axis, especially with how far advanced the Empire is. Though, the Empire’s ships are reminiscent of the Kushan Mothership from Homeworld, I dig it. The show also retains its roots as a hard sci-fi series, so the physics of space and long travel times are taken into account, even though there are hyperspace jumps as a means of FTL travel in this universe. One of the most incredible shots in the entire series comes in episode one when we see the Star Bridge - a giant space elevator high above Trantor, that serves as a port for incoming ships. The show truly is a visual spectacle.
There are a few problems that need addressing. The pacing of the show is a bit off. I got all the way to the end of the season and didn’t realise initially - or even feel like - I was watching a finale. The stuff was finished off relatively satisfactorily, so it didn’t feel like an anticlimax as such, but it felt like there should have been a bit more. As well, there’s a lot that happens in the middle of the season that felt like it didn’t necessarily need to be there. It could’ve been tighter.
And then there’s an in-universe question about a character in the Empire storyline - Demerzel. She is the advisor and caregiver to the Empire and we learn very early on that she is a robot - supposedly the last robot, after her kind had been wiped out in the robot wars - which is how she is able to nurture multiple generations of the Cleon clones. Seeing as this is Asimov’s universe, and that Foundation is linked to his Robot and Galactic Empire series, any robot in these stories should behave according to the Three Laws of Robotics. I won’t go into spoilers here, but some of Demerzel’s behaviour seems to go against those laws. There are logical loopholes and ways to circumvent the Three Laws (plus the Zeroth Law) - in fact, many of Asimov’s stories are about these loopholes and how a robot may seem to act in contradiction to them but through the proper application of logic, are found to be still working within them. So there’s something the show needs to make clear about Demerzel - are her actions logically consistent with the Three Laws? And will the show eventually reveal her true identity from the books? I sincerely hope we get more of her story because she is a compelling and mysterious character.
Overall I feel like Apple TV’s Foundation is a bit of mixed bag, but it definitely is on the more positive side of things. I appreciate what they’re doing with this adaptation, and it’s always great to have more SF on TV, especially taken from franchises other than the Stars Wars and Trek. But is it worth me going onto pay the £4.99 per month for Apple TV+ to make sure I get the second season? I’m not so sure. Honestly, where I’m at, Apple TV+ just isn’t worth that money even though I would be happy to watch season 2. The service has a very small catalogue at the moment and Foundation is the only one on there that interests me. So, I may let it lapse. All these disparate streaming services have become an absolute pain in the arse IMHO.
