Television Update (12/07): Foundation (Apple TV+) renewed for a third season

[GeneticBlueprint]

Definitely still watching. Great episode this week. Can't wait to see Brother Day do the spiral.

[Mercury33]

Havent watched this weeks episode but def still watching. Loving the show. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Yup - I'm still watching.

 

This was definitely a stronger episode this week compared to the last couple.

[Chadatog]

All I have to say about this show is why don't we get to see any twisting?

[CitizenVectron]

Anyone still watching? I'm giving up. It's not only completely different than the books (which is understandable, to an extent), but it seems to betray the spirit of the books...and is only an okay show despite the gigantic budget. Apparently the different plotlines were written by different writers, which would explain the vast disparity in quality. And whoever wrote the Salvor stuff clearly didn't read the books or understand the character. It would be like watching Lord of the Rings and having Galdalf be a power-hungry sorcerer who loves violence and can't help but meddle in everyone's business. Like...understand a character before adapting them, even if the story itself needs to be changed because of the medium.

 

Also...people being able to see/predict the future contradicts psychohistory, as well as psychohistory being applied to a single individual. It was actually pointed out in the show itself!

[CitizenVectron]

Here's a quote from a user on another forum:

 

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I think the whole thing about the books that was so alluring is that the characters would do almost the opposite of what each scenario required and with some mental judo it would end up being the perfect solution to their present insoluble situation. The fact that they couldn't craft scenarios like that with a blank slate and this whole incredible universe to play with is just lazy/bad writing

 

And it's true! Like, in the books if the Foundation is about to be destroyed by violence, the solution is to avoid hostility altogether through clever means. In the show, it's...violence?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

5 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

Anyone still watching? I'm giving up. It's not only completely different than the books (which is understandable, to an extent), but it seems to betray the spirit of the books...and is only an okay show despite the gigantic budget. Apparently the different plotlines were written by different writers, which would explain the vast disparity in quality. And whoever wrote the Salvor stuff clearly didn't read the books or understand the character. It would be like watching Lord of the Rings and having Galdalf be a power-hungry sorcerer who loves violence and can't help but meddle in everyone's business. Like...understand a character before adapting them, even if the story itself needs to be changed because of the medium.

 

Also...people being able to see/predict the future contradicts psychohistory, as well as psychohistory being applied to a single individual. It was actually pointed out in the show itself!

 

I'm gonna watch to the end of the season simply because I don't believe in the "sunk cost fallacy"

 

There's nothing truly "bad" about the show, but it's not nearly as engaging as I (foolishly) hoped it would be.

[Greatoneshere]

35 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

Anyone still watching? I'm giving up. It's not only completely different than the books (which is understandable, to an extent), but it seems to betray the spirit of the books...and is only an okay show despite the gigantic budget. Apparently the different plotlines were written by different writers, which would explain the vast disparity in quality. And whoever wrote the Salvor stuff clearly didn't read the books or understand the character. It would be like watching Lord of the Rings and having Galdalf be a power-hungry sorcerer who loves violence and can't help but meddle in everyone's business. Like...understand a character before adapting them, even if the story itself needs to be changed because of the medium.

 

Also...people being able to see/predict the future contradicts psychohistory, as well as psychohistory being applied to a single individual. It was actually pointed out in the show itself!

 

I'm still watching, though I am a book fan like you and agree it's like the books in some ways and very much not in others. I'm 4 episodes behind (so I've only seen the first 3, which I liked) but this could all just be season 1 growing pains as well, a lot of shows go through that.

 

My wife and I hope to catch up this week and I should have a more informed opinion at that time.

[Mercury33]

Didn’t read the books and absolutely love the show. Yeah the Empire stuff is light years more interesting and compelling but I don’t hate the Terminus stuff either. I’m into the Invictus stuff and now the stuff with the other ship has gotten pretty interesting. 

[johnny]

22 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

Anyone still watching? I'm giving up. It's not only completely different than the books (which is understandable, to an extent), but it seems to betray the spirit of the books...and is only an okay show despite the gigantic budget. Apparently the different plotlines were written by different writers, which would explain the vast disparity in quality. And whoever wrote the Salvor stuff clearly didn't read the books or understand the character. It would be like watching Lord of the Rings and having Galdalf be a power-hungry sorcerer who loves violence and can't help but meddle in everyone's business. Like...understand a character before adapting them, even if the story itself needs to be changed because of the medium.

 

Also...people being able to see/predict the future contradicts psychohistory, as well as psychohistory being applied to a single individual. It was actually pointed out in the show itself!

if it's too different from the books to enjoy then that's fair, but i want to see if stuff connects to each other. i think it's possible that salvor's character begins to change after the arc from this season. Or maybe Gaal will replace it. 

[GeneticBlueprint]

On 11/3/2021 at 2:46 PM, CitizenVectron said:

Anyone still watching? I'm giving up. It's not only completely different than the books (which is understandable, to an extent), but it seems to betray the spirit of the books...and is only an okay show despite the gigantic budget. Apparently the different plotlines were written by different writers, which would explain the vast disparity in quality. And whoever wrote the Salvor stuff clearly didn't read the books or understand the character. It would be like watching Lord of the Rings and having Galdalf be a power-hungry sorcerer who loves violence and can't help but meddle in everyone's business. Like...understand a character before adapting them, even if the story itself needs to be changed because of the medium.

 

Definitely still enjoying it. Could not care any less about book differences since I never read them. The pattern of this show has been resolved contradictions. It's like its theme, basically. So something not making sense now or contradicting current knowledge tends to be given a different meaning through a different POV later. It's doing that with the big themes at least, so I'm not really concerned about a battle scene here or a single character's actions there not making sense in a given scenario.

 

 

Quote

Also...people being able to see/predict the future contradicts psychohistory, as well as psychohistory being applied to a single individual. It was actually pointed out in the show itself!

 

Heh. To me, stuff like that is what's interesting about the show. There are all these rules the show establishes that are being broken. The characters acknowledge these rules. And it's interesting watching the characters grapple with those rules being broken.

[legend]

On 11/3/2021 at 4:46 PM, CitizenVectron said:

Anyone still watching? I'm giving up. It's not only completely different than the books (which is understandable, to an extent), but it seems to betray the spirit of the books...and is only an okay show despite the gigantic budget. Apparently the different plotlines were written by different writers, which would explain the vast disparity in quality. And whoever wrote the Salvor stuff clearly didn't read the books or understand the character. It would be like watching Lord of the Rings and having Galdalf be a power-hungry sorcerer who loves violence and can't help but meddle in everyone's business. Like...understand a character before adapting them, even if the story itself needs to be changed because of the medium.

 

Also...people being able to see/predict the future contradicts psychohistory, as well as psychohistory being applied to a single individual. It was actually pointed out in the show itself!

 

 

I think Salvor being violence amenable is disappointing, but if they work this into the event that changes their character more into the one we know in the book, I'd be cool with that. We'll see.

 

Re: seeing the future. It's definitely different and I'm unsure how I feel about it since they only just revealed it. But it's not all that different from (book spoilers)

Spoiler

Being able to read and manipulate minds telepathically, which also decidedly breaks psychohistory as a major plot point of the books  

They also did already reference the Mule in the narration, so I'm wondering if they're going to expand on the mental ability set.

 

 

Overall, I'm enjoying it, but there are other scifi shows I've enjoyed more (e.g., The Expanse)

[johnny]

watched this weeks episode. fuck the empire stuff is soooooo good. loved the pilgrimage stuff. 

 

terminus stuff still not good lol but when you give me empire stuff in the same ep it makes me feel ok about it. 

[GeneticBlueprint]

29 minutes ago, johnny said:

watched this weeks episode. fuck the empire stuff is soooooo good. loved the pilgrimage stuff. 

 

terminus stuff still not good lol but when you give me empire stuff in the same ep it makes me feel ok about it. 

 

Everything involving each of the three brothers is compelling. And any time Lee Pace is onscreen it's just gold.

[GeneticBlueprint]

So, I heard David Goyer (show runner) say that the clones are born sterile in the latest official podcast. Makes sense because you wouldn't want your genetic dynasty getting rivaled by your blood dynasty.

 

Buuuuut... Since the current Brother Dawn has all sorts of "defects" a clone shouldn't have what are the odds on Auzura being pregnant now?

[Mercury33]

It’s reached that point where each subsequent episode is surpassing the last. The Invictus stuff was great (loved the Event Horizon vibes it gave off) and the Empire stuff, good lord. 

[Mercury33]

Latest episode = mind blown

 

I love this fucking show 

[CitizenVectron]

Next season I expect to see a three-storey tall robotic Hari Seldon laying waste to the old Imperial worlds with a flying army of psychic mathematicians behind him, and the writers will say "we really respect Asimov's vision."

[GeneticBlueprint]

If that means more Jared Harris then I'm down to clown.

[CitizenVectron]

'Foundation' Has an Imperialism Problem - The Atlantic

WWW.THEATLANTIC.COM

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Who cares if a brutal autocracy is destroyed? Why would anyone want to make another one?

 

Good article on how Foundation (book series) deals with collapsing empire (and how that relates to the American empire), and how the show flips those ideas around and mostly fails because of it (but at least update's the stories' flawed takes on gender, etc. Mostly Goyer is just a moron, and Asimov was a better writer with better insights (which isn't saying much, he was a terrible person).

 

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Epic, thrilling, and completely ridiculous, Foundation remains a deceptively difficult feast of big ideas because Asimov based it—with a few spectacular adjustments—on Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

 

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Despite their brilliance and charm, many of Foundation’s protagonists pursue morally dubious careers. Salvor Hardin, the hero of the second and third stories, wins our hearts with his pacifist maxim “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” He is also an enemy of democracy. After outsmarting everyone, he takes over the Foundation in a conveniently bloodless coup and oversees decades of prosperity as its savvy monarch.

 

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And with each successive story, the unbridled optimism of Asimov’s early entries is complicated by darker developments. The Foundation becomes a police state, and at times embodies the worst elements of what it once battled against. 

 

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Goyer has taken Asimov’s engagement with the complexity of empire and rewritten it as a good-guys-with-laser-guns tale, the very (semi-) literary tradition that Asimov rejected.

 

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Goyer’s otherwise commendable anti-imperialism, however, has left him with a fundamentally incoherent story line. Asimov’s Galactic Empire, despite its flaws, is the greatest incubator of art and knowledge the universe has ever known. Goyer’s is just a brutal autocracy. Who cares if it is destroyed? Why would anyone want to make another one?

 

 

tl;dr: Asimov's success was examining the repercussions of a falling stalled golden empire, and the ways it could be rebuilt (even stronger) through intelligence, wisdom, and general craftiness. The show seems to be about the fall of a horrible empire, and how violence is a useful tool against bad guys.

 

Very different themes and messages. As the article states, Asimov wrote during a time of an ascending empire (America) who used technology to dominate. Goyer is maybe attempting to turn this into a story about the fall of America from internal rot. Except even though he (Goyer) claims it's a "post-9/11" story, the only reference he really makes is by having a giant 9/11 in the first episode. It's not really an examination in any meaningful way.

[GeneticBlueprint]

I think you're Iletting your love of the book get in the way to some objective analysis of the show.  There's a lot more reference to internal rot and decay and reliance on technology than a single terrorist sequence in this show. Like... Every scene involving Empire or Trantor. Which is definitely the most compelling part of the show.

 

Anyways, pretty good finale. Demrazel... Damn she's cold.

 

[johnny]

doesn’t matter to me at all what the books say. 

 

i really liked the finale. of course the empire storyline rocks but i liked where they ended with terminus. offing the female antagonist in the other episode was one of the best things they could have done. she was dragging the show down. Gaal and Salvor are in interesting spots. 

[johnny]

also the punishment the flower girl receives is absolutely fucking brutal

[Mercury33]

What a fucking finale. Holy shit. I legit have not been this excited about or invested in a show probably since Game of Thrones. From where it started with “well this world is at least pretty I won’t mind spending some time in it” to “omg wtf is going on this is amazing what’s happening next” 😂😂 

 

amazing show and I literally can’t wait for season 2. 
 

And yeah, that’s gotta be the most savage punishment in the history of media. 

[skillzdadirecta]

I told my dad about this show yesterday... he binged the whole thing and was blown away 

[brucoe]

On 11/20/2021 at 12:44 AM, johnny said:

also the punishment the flower girl receives is absolutely fucking brutal

It kind of gave me Game of Thrones vibes mixed with Shogun (where the woman who is motivated by personal beauty is sentenced to a life of living in a room of mirrors until she dies old and unattractive). But still brutal nonetheless.

[skillzdadirecta]

3 hours ago, brucoe said:

It kind of gave me Game of Thrones vibes mixed with Shogun (where the woman who is motivated by personal beauty is sentenced to a life of living in a room of mirrors until she dies old and unattractive). But still brutal nonetheless.

What Empire did to that woman was one if the coldest things I've ever seen in fiction.  Perfectly acted too.

[Mercury33]

Empire is def up there with Tyrion Lannister for favorite TV characters for me. The fact that he could be that cold in his revenge and then be merciful(but really that was disgusting selfishness). Amazing. 

[legend]

Overall enjoyed it. I will be pretty disappointed if they don't come out with a Zeroth-law justification for Demerzel's actions and make zeroth-law central to the story. I can imagine some ways that would play out, but if they just threw the four laws into the garbage can, it's missing some of the most important points of the foundation-robot verse.

[brucoe]

34 minutes ago, legend said:

Overall enjoyed it. I will be pretty disappointed if they don't come out with a Zeroth-law justification for Demerzel's actions and make zeroth-law central to the story. I can imagine some ways that would play out, but if they just threw the four laws into the garbage can, it's missing some of the most important points of the foundation-robot verse.

That was one of the thoughts I had when she killed the priestess. It really bothered me because of how important the laws were to Asimov's work AND the fact that he incorporated the two universes together in Foundation.

[johnny]

5 hours ago, legend said:

Overall enjoyed it. I will be pretty disappointed if they don't come out with a Zeroth-law justification for Demerzel's actions and make zeroth-law central to the story. I can imagine some ways that would play out, but if they just threw the four laws into the garbage can, it's missing some of the most important points of the foundation-robot verse.

i feel like she had to kill dawn to protect whatever she is trying to accomplish. like dawn was going to tear the other two apart and she thought it would cause some kind of big issue that doesn’t work for her agenda so she had to kill him. 

[Mercury33]

52 minutes ago, johnny said:

i feel like she had to kill dawn to protect whatever she is trying to accomplish. like dawn was going to tear the other two apart and she thought it would cause some kind of big issue that doesn’t work for her agenda so she had to kill him. 

that’s how I took it. Above all she has to protect the dynasty and him staying alive would have caused too big a rift or whatever. 

[legend]

11 hours ago, johnny said:

i feel like she had to kill dawn to protect whatever she is trying to accomplish. like dawn was going to tear the other two apart and she thought it would cause some kind of big issue that doesn’t work for her agenda so she had to kill him. 

 

I think that's plausible too and is what I'm hoping for. The key though, is her ultimate motivations should not be that it serves empire better, but that it serves humanity at large better. Thus far, she has verbally justified actions like killing the priest and Dawn even though she didn't "want" to, because it ultimately better served empire. If that ends up her goal it will be disappointing. But if she's just saying that's the reason, but in fact she does these things because it's necessary to keep humanity on track, then it's all gravy. We'll have to wait for later seasons to see how her story evolves to know for sure.

[skillzdadirecta]

2 hours ago, legend said:

 

I think that's plausible too and is what I'm hoping for. The key though, is her ultimate motivations should not be that it serves empire better, but that it serves humanity at large better. Thus far, she has verbally justified actions like killing the priest and Dawn even though she didn't "want" to, because it ultimately better served empire. If that ends up her goal it will be disappointing. But if she's just saying that's the reason, but in fact she does these things because it's necessary to keep humanity on track, then it's all gravy. We'll have to wait for later seasons to see how her story evolves to know for sure.

I'm pretty sure she's been reprogrammed to serve the Empire even though she doesn't want to. That's her conflict... they reference the Robot wars so I assume robots rebbelled at one point?

[legend]

3 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I'm pretty sure she's been reprogrammed to serve the Empire even though she doesn't want to. That's her conflict... they reference the Robot wars so I assume robots rebbelled at one point?

 

That's what I'm hoping isn't the case, because

 

 

 

 

 

Honestly the notion of the "robot wars" itself is concerning that they'll fuck this up since it's hard to square away that concept with the laws. But Demerzel even in the books hides what they can do and what their true motives are. So maybe the same will hold here?