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

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

Yeah by essentially leaning into space opera more than the actual stories did (and matching that with some really impressive sense of design and how technology could work), they cracked a code very well.

Speaking of space opera, that last episode battle reminded me a lot of that uh more popular space opera

i kinda disagree - some of the "best ideas" of the books seem like they were imported without retaining the most interesting parts. the Mule, for instance (though i am certain there's a "twist" planned there, i love the way Asimov chose to tell his story: as a kid i was genuinely flabbergasted by it.) or Seldon's simulacrum; I always thought there was a profound lesson in the programmed piece of software that increasingly grows out of sync with reality. best laid plans...

but then i'm among that minority that despises the slow shift of all television into action film

No I actually agree with you re: the Mule and was a little disappointed myself. Not every change they've made has been for the better, certainly.
But they've taken a different introduction to the Mule and I'll stay open to what they do with that story. In general, I think the books get better as they go and could be adapted to TV with less changes, but they've committed to the remix approach that lets them keep some actors/locations from season to season, which is its own thing and might have been necessary from a budget or sellability standpoint

While we're on the subject, another change I'm not crazy about is Seldon's direct involvement in so many events, the "thumb on the scale" as they describe it, which imo goes against the spirit of psychohistory. May have preferred them to give Seldon a reduced role as he has in the books if Jared Harris wasn't such a captivating actor

Heh I think we're saying the same thing about Seldon

ya - they were right to draw out the theme of the books of whether history is a story of individual actors or of movements, but mostly that theme feels like lip-service: by focusing so much on Seldon, Salvor, Day, etc, it kind of eliminates the question. it's boring imo to experience history as the psychodrama of a few immortal action heroes.

Nice interview with Goyer on the season

https://decider.com/2023/10/25/foundation-david-s-goyer-interview/

Hey, we got good news:

https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/news/2023/12/apple-tv-renews-global-hit-epic-sci-fi-saga-foundation-for-season-three/

I’d have been extremely irritated if they didn’t!

We got Preem Palver

Meantime, hmm, but guess we'll see what results.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/foundation-david-s-goyer-steps-down-showrunner-season-3-1235834630/

This is the part that I'm actually concerned about the most: given the general excellence of the visual effects in combination with the design, it would hurt if that was cut back some.

Sources say Goyer and executives at the show’s production company, Skydance, clashed over the budget for the upcoming season. TV budgets are under scrutiny across the industry as streamers right-size their slates with an eye toward boosting profitability.

Yeah losing Goyer as well as budget is a pretty bad sign. Visual effects are a big part of the show's appeal