David Goyer adapting Asimov's Foundation books for Apple+ (Previously: Jonathan Nolan adapting Asimov's Foundation books for HBO)

Interview with Goyer about things

https://gizmodo.com/foundation-s2-asimov-apple-tv-david-s-goyer-interview-1850596741

Ho ho he make joke:

I told [Demerzel actor] Laura Birn when she joined the show that her character was a slow burn—we don’t get into her interior life that much in season one. And then slowly, we peel back the layers

Anyway, first episode of the new season was pretty good all around, I thought. The show is even more off in its own zone at this point but it did get right what Rings of Power didn't in general in terms of how to loosely adapt something from a source and make it interesting in its own sphere, and the design remains remarkable on several levels. Some spoilery thoughts:

However handwavey it is (and boy is it) getting Gaal, Salvor and Hari together in 'real space' makes for good TV, and Lou Llobell and Leah Harvey in particular make for a good combination of actors playing one of the weirdest dynamics ever set up. If they end up somehow being a combination Greek chorus/narrator across the entire series via a series of convenient hibernations, well, why not. The sense of everything being more fraught and baroque on the Empire end of things was nicely done; the time jump allows for a fully new set of the three Emperors and the unspoken sense of how things are just more fragile and loaded now is clear enough. Also it's nice to see all three actors playing slightly different versions of themselves again (Demerzel as the constant I do want to see a little more of). Smushing details of a slew of stories together -- "The Mayors," "The Merchant Princes," "The General" and given we know Kalgan shows up in some form this season possibly the start of "The Mule" itself -- isn't a bad idea, really. If anything the small hint dropped in the brief Terminus scene that the Seldon cult, explicitly said in the stories to be designed for the off-world rubes, has an actual presence in the society itself is a smart one.

I’m catching up on s2 today. After watching the most recent episode of The Righteous Gemstones, who knew I’d so soon have another naked fight scene to compare! (Gemstones was better and, er, braver.)

I was happy when the Mindhunter actor showed up, but then oh

ha I was trying to remember what I knew him from.

I've never read the books but based on commentary in this thread I'm happy to see that The Mule has showed up. Based on comments further upthread it sounded like that plot point could've been much further off in the series.

As usual this show is still daffy and dense but I'm happy to keep going along with it. I appreciate its ambitions.

https://imgopt03.mrskincdn.com/mrman/blog_resource/000/000/003/084/women_in_love_nude_wrestling-e0ee453e_featured.png?1576764862

"who knew I’d so soon have another naked fight scene to compare! (Gemstones was better and, er, braver.)"

xpost Yeah the Mule showing up even as a future projection/vision accelerates a lot of things. Mikael Persbrandt was already announced as the 'Warlord of Kalgan' but yeah, the Mule, so that makes sense per the original stories. Assuming this isn't some sort of weird headfake and the 'real' Mule isn't more like the character as revealed in the stories, it's a massive revamp -- the Mule in the stories is slight, physically unimposing, hides in plain sight. That's one reason why I figured Persbrandt WASN'T the Mule because he's anything but such a small and seemingly quiet figure in real life, and turning him into a Robert Z'Dar style cyborg executioner from a direct to TV 1990s Sci-Fi Channel movie is, I admit, a choice, but given the revamping of so much else about the story I'm just rolling with it. The show continues to look remarkable at the least.

I do think it's kind of a smart move to have introduced both Riose and Mallow by name but we haven't seen either yet.

suddenly we're swearing a lot

Well it's later in time, they teach those words in primary school now.

And anyway we get Hober and Bel at last. I was amused at how a key plot point of "The Traders" was delivered and then completely undercut.

I'm on board with most of this show except I still find all the plot logic around Hari Seldon's character to be really tough to swallow. It switches between complex/arbitrary at the drop of a hat. At one point Gaal says "pychohistory is not omniscient!" and Hari simply replies "It is now!" Like OK writers, thanks for trying.

It's probably the most handwavey part of it all. Though arguably the more Asimov himself wrote about psychohistory the more handwavey THAT got.

Not a bad ep this week but def felt like they were moving the pieces on the chessboard.

ben daniels is the most intriguing actor in this show and they’re not doing enough with him

also everything on this mentalist planet is corny af

also also can robots nullify the three laws if they commit to holding their arms that way for millennia on end or what

ben daniels is the most intriguing actor in this show and they’re not doing enough with him

Would agree.

Yesterday's episode: best of the season, especially with the mask-off on the mentalist planet. Ends on just the right note. It's seriously Good TV all around.

Did I miss the scene that explained how Salvor didn’t die in the last episode and was instead moved to a pit prison? Seemed like they just ignored their own plotting.

Otherwise agree this was good episode that felt like it was building toward the climax.

the bad woman is putting visions in peoples’s heads (including ours)

not entirely sure why she bothered, tho

I lol’d at Hari having an epiphany about the second Foundation and conveniently summarizing major plot arcs which the writers clearly know are hard to follow.

wau

definitely wau

i apologize for having ever suggested that things don't actually happen too much in this series

did hari seldon really compensate for the gravometric effect of lee pace's eyebrows tho

I like this show but damn do I want to punch Lee Pace's big sweaty face so bad.

that final shot of the newest episode might have been the first time I’d agree

some real viewer-teasing going on here by just dumping everything they’d foreshadowed in one episode

Rather. Intrigued to see where/how this exactly resolves.

idk man

love a demerzel showcase but magicking everyone on terminus back to life is lame af. while still killing the two (three?) most interesting characters! also the whole side quest on ignis was essentially pointless imo

hoping mikael persbrandt survives until series three in 2025 i guess

While I liked it more than you did, yeah I was kinda pissed to lose Leah Harvey in particular. (I kept half guessing that the young kid was going to BE the Mule later on, but I guess that's not happening!) Also unless the whole idea is to change around the future timeline and shorten things -- which, why not, the whole idea of the Mule is that he's the unforeseen chaos factor and here the series has been basically setting him up as a threat for almost the whole season -- seems like we'd lose Isabella Laughland's character as well by default, which sucks. I was amused by Vault TARDIS Emergency Vehicle but I had to figure there was going to be some sort of save -- part of me almost wonders if they're going to go Cylon Homeworld somehow -- and until the episode was far enough along I kept wondering if Hari had stuffed Day into a pocket universe of some sort while in the Vault. As for the Ignis sideplot, I kept waiting for some sort of info dump that basically confirmed whatshername old Empress was a robot and that Hari was dumped into a robot body of his own. I suppose that could still happen? But hm either way. My own minor nit was Sareth and Dawn flying off and me going "But the Empire doesn't have small jumpships so how far do they think they're going to get."

Persbrandt's great casting and I kinda appreciate they're just ditching the whole 'who is the Mule' thing in favor of just introducing a straight up jacked Terminatorish fascist asshole, but I would have been amused to see him introduced in a scene capering on the beach busking while wearing a clown outfit or whatever.

One other thing, looking back a couple of weeks: I appreciated how the Salvor/Hari-on-Terminus conversation essentially implied that the latter is outside of conventional time, since he only knows to call Hober Mallow precisely because Salvor tells him to, and thus explains the name appearing on the vault in delightful cursive a few episodes prior. But I'm beginning to wonder if that was just a weird one-off instead of an actually interesting plot device.

Non-spoiler since it addresses several bits from the season: My assumption that the brief inter-Hari communication was a sign that were partially viewing multiple points in time now, if not separate timelines that are entangled via the prime radiant. There’s a bunch of very fast travel throughout space and cryosleep so there’s no reason we couldn’t have one Hari far ahead of another.

Anyway, couple of Goyer interviews out there about it all, spoilers obv

https://www.tvguide.com/news/foundation-season-2-finale-david-s-goyer/

This bit isn't a spoiler but does maybe indicate that if the strikes get resolved we might get season 3 on schedule, more or less:

We've written Season 3 — because we have to write these seasons sometimes years in advance — and as wild as Season 2 has gotten, in many ways it's only prelude for Season 3. Season 3 will get even wilder.

And this, well, if you guys can actually pull it off, god love ya:

We have the broad strokes of (Season) 4 all mapped out. We know where all the major characters wind up at the end of (Season) 4. It doesn't mean we might not shimmy along the way. We have some very broad strokes for how some of the subsequent seasons would map out. I don't know how many seasons I'm going to get and I don't want to leave the audience hanging, so we're building a satisfying offramp that can be achieved at the end (Season) 4 and another one at the end of (Season) 6, and the ultimate one at the end of (Season) 8.

Really enjoyed S10, but the mule is corny as f

^that's me in the future obv, E10

This show has gotten to the point where, when Hari and Gaal explain how Hari didn’t die a few episodes back, I just roll my eyes and say “okay, Foundation,” and we just move on.

Goyer’s gotten a little better with a team of writers working for him but he’s definitely a sucker for the plot cliche where it’s revealed someone actually disarmed the threatening bomb three episodes ago, you just didn’t see that

It’s kinda funny to follow up watching Foundation with Mrs Davis (which I’m currently doing)—two shows that do a lot of hand-wavey plot explication, but where Foundation is stone faced and serious, it’s basically the punchline of Mrs Davis.

I just finished bingeing both seasons over the last week and I honestly still don’t know if I actually like this show. A lot of the acting isn’t great. And there’s a couple of things that are personally very nails-on-chalkboard to me, e.g. Gaal’s accent (sorry to any SA ilxors but that accent is just ugh to my ears), and Sareth’s posture/body language/facial movements (I keep thinking an alien is about to burst out of her). Also Dawn and Day pronounce it Demerzel and Dusk sounds like he’s saying Demrezel. Dusk looks like he’s wearing poorly fitted dentures.

Demerzel is probably my favorite character.

And how did everyone get into the vault in time? The Invictus was beating down on everyone, miles away from the vault.

I have my suspicions that they’re “in the vault” kind of how Hari is in the vault

I think Brother Constant might have been my favorite character of the season. Just great work playing against a variety of different characters. And how did I not realize until now that her name (well, not her real name) is a riff on Brother Dawn/Brother Dusk/Brother Day. sheesh.

Yeah Isabella Laughland is kinda my 'how did I not know about her before' discovery of the season.

I enjoyed this season more than season two but it definitely had some moments where I was like “ok just ride the wave, just ride the wave”.

Do the books explain how psychohistory/the prime radiant actually work? Because iirc the show doesn’t explain anything. Like, I’m down for believing mathematics can predict a lot of stuff about the progress of civilization but the explicitness of psychohistory - even with the caveat that it can’t predict individual action, only mass population action - is a little tougher for me to buy. Also how did he get his hands on all the tech for the creation of the vault and the prime radiant?? He was obviously being surveilled by the Imperium for a long time. And how is the Invictus tech - 700 yrs old - not so completely out of date?

Also also also did I miss something or is it still not clear who was really responsible for the bombing of the star bridge?

xp this was season two. stop posting from the future

Like, I’m down for believing mathematics can predict a lot of stuff about the progress of civilization but the explicitness of psychohistory - even with the caveat that it can’t predict individual action, only mass population action - is a little tougher for me to buy.

It still bugs me that they keep saying that about specific individuals yet Hari keeps zeroing in on “outliers” whose specific actions derail his plans.

iirc In the books Psychohistory predicted everything basically right up until the Mule arrived, and that was because he was a mutant? The show already has a planet full of mutants.

I've been wondering how the books and series compare, anyone care to summarize the differences?

the major difference is that the books were actually collections of short stories, and each story was set in a different time had no characters from the previous stories, other than H.Selden's hologram.

they took a few ideas from the books (psychohistory, crises, mentalics, Foundation spreading influence through different ways like religion and trade) and character names and basically made up a brand new story/characters from it. the best thing by far about the books is the ideas, not Asimov's writing or characters or stories, so they're taking the right approach. loved season 2 btw, might be my favorite show running now