Please no book spoilers in this thread. This thread can contain TV spoilers up to season 2 episode 2.
Air Date: July 21st 2023
Posted this in another /c but disappointed by this season, Lee and Jared are doing what they can but the writing is brutal, too many threads not enough setting, 2 episodes on synnax, the most boring planet in the galaxy with 0 population, and how is that one building somehow floating for hundreds of years with hurricanes like that so common that someone who left as a teen knows how to predict them?
Adding the mule arc early didn’t seem like a great solution to not closing threads coherently, we just went from an 8 thread jumble to a 12 thread jumble.
There’s one payoff I’m waiting for and that’s demerzel, but they can’t pull that till later, so we are stuck with interempire-rivalry with that girl added in.
They didn’t exactly add the mule arc early, though, given that his existence is only revealed by precognition.
I think it’s nice that the Mule isn’t so unique and unexpected in the TV series, actually. Seldon didn’t account for this kind of “psychic” capability in his equations, but now that he’s actually doing experimental psychohistory stuff like this is starting to pop out of the woodwork and reveal itself through glitches in the original plan. I suspect this is a benefit of working from a completed series rather than making up the series one book at a time like Asimov did, you can know ahead of time what to foreshadow.
I liked it!
Me too. It’s been long enough since I read the books that “no book spoilers” is pretty moot as a caution for me, but I get the impression that the show might also be diverging pretty far from the books too at this point? It’s got the same themes and stuff but there was a development in this episode that made me sit up and go “wait, that didn’t happen.”
But if so, I actually like this new development compared to how I remembered it go in the original books.
That’s good to hear.
I’ve been delaying watching it for a while, in part due to how critical people were.
Perhaps that’s silly, given my expectations aren’t that high. I just want a fun show to fall asleep to. Every show doesn’t need to be The Expanse or Counterpart.
Hell has no fury like a sci-fi fan whose source material has been scorned.
And to be fair, I can completely understand that perspective, and maybe it is a cynical ploy by greedy studios and ambitious writers who want their own thing put on screen, but if you’re among the millions who are either not familiar with or not invested in the source material (coughHalocough), you can take these shows for what they are.
Foundation is nowhere near as tight as the Expanse was, and it’s undoubtedly just letting sufficiently advanced math be a byword for magic, but it’s well enough performed and there are a few compelling ideas floating around, and the narrative threads are finally beginning to come together. As someone who is not an Asimov reader, I like it quite a bit but don’t love it.
I’m enjoying having a weekly sci fi show outside of strange new worlds. Seldon’s portrayal of being trapped for 100+ years was fun to watch. I love when good actors ham it up.
He was brilliant.
I liked this episode a little bit better than the last one. I’m getting a little bit better feel for where things are headed. Salvor and Gaal are still the most uninteresting part of this show for me, but that could change if they actually start doing things to influence the rest of the plot.
I wish there was more technical explanation of how Gaal and Salvor could see the future and the past. Is this based on anything or is it basically just magic? I remember in the beginning of season 1 Gaal was partially awake during that subspace transit. I thought they would bring that up again as to how it messed up her mind in some quantum weirdness, but I guess not.
As for Cleon this episode. I’m surprised he didn’t just kill this woman on the spot. His temper and arrogance in the past made it seem like he would find her unacceptably insulting. It’s also surprising that there doesn’t need to be some kind of unanimous agreement among the entire Cleon tree as they call it for such drastic decisions like ending the Cleon cloning lineage. Day apparently has this authority on his own?
It’s basically magic. Telepathy and prophecy and being able to discern the future with ‘math’ are used extensively in the books. It’s just part of the world.
This isn’t our universe. It’s an alternative reality with themes that sometimes mirror portion of life on Earth and offer alternative angles to view those themes so that we might think about our own problems in a new way. That’s what sci fi is all about.
I’m fine with basically magic, but I do like at least some pseudo explanation of the fictional science. If they leave it as a mystery then it is too far on the fantasy scale for my tastes.
It’s still a SyFy show with swearwords and a VFX budget but on the plus side - I think this was the first episode without a redundant voice-over from Gaal, so that’s something.
Highlight:
“What’s that Beki? Can you smell water? What’s that Beki? Can you smell trouble?”Lowlight:
The scene with the camera revolving around the characters was like a parody of that kind of scene.I’d like to read the book series in the future, which one’s the best to start with?
I think “The Foundation Trilogy” is where you start. It was written first. There are then a prequel trilogy and a sequel trilogy. I’ve also heard it be suggested that the book “End of Eternity” is a kind of prequel prequel, but it’s hard to know if Asimov really intended such a thing or if there are merely some coincidences and common themes.
I agree with you, probably the best place to start is the original trilogy. Prelude to foundation and forward to foundation are nice, but I found them less impactful than the foundation/foundation and empire/second foundation. Since it ties to the foundation lore as well, I would suggest the robot series as well, it has some of my favourite books (the naked sun to name the best IMO!).
End of eternity is nice and could be seen as a part of the robot/foundation saga, but I would read it as it is and then, if you want, tie it to the overarching story.
