It’s hard to get a legitimate take on this show due to Apple fans. The consensus that I got was that it was not anything like the books, might be missing the point. But the veteran actors and Emperor plotlines are great while the new actors and Foundation plotline are weak.
I went through the book series again and was wondering if anything from the books does get adapted or is it pretty much the same as season 1?
I’ll add my voice to the consensus, ignore the part where it’s connected to the books. It’s a superficially similar story, but it has neither the purpose, storytelling or even plot points of the books.
What I find the hardest is that despite having a solid plot and concept to follow, the series has very weak story telling. It might be that I’m getting old, but I find the focus is more on eye candy and cool situations than on progressing the story and characters.
It has the feel of filler content to generate ad opportunity, or an illustrated podcast about someone who once read the books but has too much ADHD to be able to retell what they read.
That is also the vibe of much other content on AppleTV, so might be a conscious choice of which I’m not a target demographic. I’ll be shouting at clouds about it though, maybe it’ll slow climate change while I’m at it.
I agree, it is a shame that the movie industry is full of egos and back patters. Foundation could have easily turned into a massive franchise. I can’t even finish watching season one. It was slightly interesting at first, but it totally lacks any depth and ruined all of the subtle points that tie the books together. There is nothing to build upon and expand the franchise into something interesting based on the books. Their biggest crime is calling it Foundation. It would have been better on its own mediocrity.
Haven’t seen s2 so can’t comment on that but aside from the emperor(s) storylines s1 was just awful in my view. Didn’t make sense, very incoherent, just badly written…and that’s without comparison to the books. I listened to the podcast related to the show and it’s clear the show runner has a vision that strongly contrasts with what I like in sci-fi
Season two is a mixed bag. I’m not enjoying it as much as I did season one. Lee Pace is carrying the entire show on his performance. Dude should be able to walk into any part he wants based on his talent here.
This season introduced way too many new characters. I’m having a difficult time caring about any of them. Adding a bunch of magical mumbo jumbo disguised as science is also not helping.
I read binge-read the seven books 20 years ago and was very eager to see the show.
I hated almost everything of the first season, except for the parts that were not in the books (the Cleon clones thing was clever to keep the cast incarnating Empire, the gender changes were welcome). Harris is awfully pompous and haughty. The show was so heavy and serious about himself. I couldn’t find any of Asimov’s deadpan humor.
The show started to kick in for me in season 2, thanks to Poly and Constant, who finally brought Asimov’s dark humor.
I really enjoyed s02e07. The writing was perfect, acid like a good GOT episode.
Firstly, forget the books
Secondly try to convince yourself that two or disparate storylines somehow will combine at some point to become meaningful.
Thirdly for some odd reason I still enjoy it
I think if you ignore its an adaptation, its fine. It murders the source material in many ways. That doesn’t bother me much because I think the foundation books told faithfully would have made for a very dry tv series.
