With the first season in the bag, I’m actually really enjoying the show as interesting, high-concept sci-fi.
I get that there’s bound to be differences in adapting a seven-book series that was retroactively forged into books out of numerous short stories aiming to tell a story spanning 1,000 years of human history.
The “genetic dynasty” of a succession of Lee Paces ruling the crumbling empire with an iron fist is the show’s highlight, thanks in no small part to Pace’s dynamic performances as the cloned Brother Day.
But by the end of the finale, it felt like the show was twisting itself in knots to keep key characters like Hardin and Gaal around through multiple eras of the show so that the actors playing them could offer some continuity for the next season.
That goes for the big things — like a desert planet’s incredibly detailed religious beliefs and ceremonies or the sheer scale of the landscapes you see — to the smaller moments, like the scratches on an old spacesuit or the way each culture has its own particular style of dress and armor.
There’s just so much going on, and so much complexity — Harri Seldon’s plan seemed complicated at first, but the many layers it ends up involving made it even harder to follow — that’s only compounded by the fact that many of the characters live years beyond their life span through cryo-sleep or other means.
And like you said, even when they don’t have much to work with, much of the cast here does great with what’s in front of them — especially the villains.
And the slower pace and steadily built-out cast do help flesh out the latter characters a lot more than Gaal, Hari, or Raych get throughout the first two episodes.
The show also uses the time to raise some thoughts about the idea of religion and faith versus science and human effort, and the blurred lines between them, particularly as Seldin’s elaborate plan is revealed to help establish himself as a mythological figure in the history of the Foundation.
One of the draws of the original series is how it skips through time, showing snapshots of the fall of the Empire, the rise of the Foundation as a new power, how Seldon’s predictive powers do manage to foresee the different shifts and changes in the galactic sphere.
In theory, that could all be part of the plan: showrunner David S.
In season 1, you’re investing 10 hours for the promise of a more interesting story to come.