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Foundation seasons 1-2
The best or at least the most entertaining trashy SF soap opera no one's talking about! I've literally seen nothing about this at all in my social circles, to the extent that I didn't even really know about it until Orion started watching it. I was kind of halfway glancing at the screen now and then, if I happened to be in the room, for the first half of season one (and have only the vaguest idea what happened in the first few episodes, based on later events), then got invested and eventually completely hooked in season two, which also picks up after a 100-year timeskip so the cast has changed a lot anyway. Although between stasis pods, cloning, and holograms, it's mostly the same actors. We have a running joke that by season 3 the cast
Anyway, so it is good? Hard to say! It's sort of like if Expanse and Game of Thrones had a (somewhat more optimistic) baby, in which the budgets are huge, the planets are beautiful, the spaceships are shiny, and lots of Big Feelings happen. The Evil Empire is run by an endless series of clone emperors played by Lee Pace in Romanesque armor and capes with massive amounts of scenery-chewing and an immortal robot bodyguard he occasionally has sex with. They have All The Clones in storage, so if he gets killed, they'll just transfer his memories and activate another one! Meanwhile the rebellion is being orchestrated as a 4000-step multi-century Xanatos gambit by a guy who started by having himself killed and activating a digital copy. Interestingly though, there is so much going on, and it's taking so much time for his plan to come to fruition, that it never really feels like the two of them directly pitted against each other (at least not that much), it's more like all of the stuff that happens along the way, the planets and the pretty spaceships and the people we meet who struggle and fight and save each other along the way.
I have to say that while I'm occasionally reminded by certain plot points and tropes that this is a series based on books from the 1970s, they did a good enough job with racebending, presumable genderbending, and so forth that it rarely feels like it. (Also, though I only know the books from general osmosis, I'm fairly confident the plot has gone way off-book anyway.) In season two there are no less than four young female characters of color in major plot-defining roles, there's a central gay couple whose loyalty to each other in the face of the Empire is a major plot point, and in general it's just a pretty, pretty show full of pretty people and pretty planets (and occasionally some really dazzling space-operatic SF stuff). It is definitely the most OTT and operatic thing I've watched since probably the MCU, and I'm really enjoying it.
Under the cut, out-of-order and largely out-of-context comments on various things I had a reaction to (mostly season 2 since that's where I got invested).
- This show is an emotional roller coaster of the highest order. How many different instances of presumed dead and identity-switching can we pack into a single episode?
- CONSTANT MY BELOVED. Season 2 in general gives great female characters, I already loved Salvo (;__;) and I also really enjoyed the ladies from the Cloud Dominion, but Constant!! She's just so funny and fun and so absolutely deadpan about everything from conning randos on some backwater alien planet to kidnapping a guy. I was so glad she lived through all of the half-dozen times she almost certainly should have died.
- I was surprisingly upset about formerly-trapped-in-the-Radiant half-crazy Harry's death, "surprisingly" because, well, Harry, and also, it wasn't like this leaves us entirely without Harry Seldons, there's still Creepy Monolith Harry and who knows how many other copies out there. But that one had been through enough with Gail and Salvo that he really felt like a different person. He's still a manipulative sack of dicks but I liked him! I was sad, but at least hoping he was backed up somewhere! And then two episodes later the most excellent reveal that he and Gail faked the whole thing! I thoroughly loved all of that. Gail hugging him! <333
- "Don't trust the planet of the creepy utopian space psychics!" Orion and I were chanting at the screen, while they proceeded to not listen to us and it was, predictably, a bad idea. Seriously, when in all of sci-fi was trusting the creepy psychic utopia a good idea?
- I had guessed/hoped that the guy with the whispership (can't remember his name) was going to warp into the plaza and save Constant from execution, but I really wasn't sure, and even with an inkling it was going to happen, that was an AMAZING entrance, A+++, no notes. Especially after Constant gave her speech and everything seemed to be setting her up to be a martyr to the Foundation, I was less and less hopeful she was going to get out of it alive somehow. Excellent rescue, very pleased.
- I really enjoyed the entire subplot with the Evil Empire Honorable Space Admiral (can't remember anyone's names here either) and the scene in which he justifies his continued loyalty to the Empire is really a good scene. I mean, it's awful. But you can see his reasoning. He can't overthrow the Empire, if he refuses orders it won't change anything, he and everyone he loves will die, and someone else will be put in his place and follow the orders anyway. But then the whole thing with Constant's rescue points out that it may not be possible to change the entire Evil Empire, but you can make a lot of difference for just one person.
- But I still wanted him to make better or at least different choices on the blowing up the planet sequence! I guess it all worked out according to Harry's 9999-step plan (my death is only the beginning! the death of my planet is only the beginning!) but that hurted.
- Between Honorable Space Admiral and his fighter pilot husband, I was absolutely *not* expecting the husband to be the one of the two of them that survived. However, Honorable Space Admiral and whispership guy got a dynamite final episode (the fistfight with Cleon! never has a man deserved so much punching! the airlock switch!) and they both got to go out in an excellent death scene.
- The entire thing with Terminus getting blown up! And then Deus Ex Monolith! And Constant's dads and Space Admiral's Space Husband are alive after the whole exploding planet fell on them! (I was SO happy Constant's family got reunited, I was so afraid she and Space Dads were going to go down each thinking the other one had died.) I think this episode gave me emotional whiplash.
- SALVO NO. WHAT WAS THAT EVEN. She just randomly died at the end there?? Come onnnnn. We already got like 12 death fake-outs in the last couple of episodes! Why'd that one have to be real?!
- If time passes differently in the monolith, does that mean the entire rescued Terminus population are still going to be around after the second 150-year timeskip? I have questions!
- Speaking of time passing differently in the monolith, best dialogue:
Whispership guy: Whoa, it's dark. How long was I in there, anyway?
Constant: Three years.
Paulie: More like three hours.
Constant: We agreed we weren't going to tell him!
I love them. <3333
- So that sure was A Lot with the Cleons. And now I guess there's an entire Cleon/Cloud Dominion dynasty out there somewhere just waiting to cause trouble.
So yeah, I'm really enjoying my bombastic sci-fi soap opera! Season 3 when pls.
Spoiler
will be at least 50% Cleons and Harry Seldons by volume.Anyway, so it is good? Hard to say! It's sort of like if Expanse and Game of Thrones had a (somewhat more optimistic) baby, in which the budgets are huge, the planets are beautiful, the spaceships are shiny, and lots of Big Feelings happen. The Evil Empire is run by an endless series of clone emperors played by Lee Pace in Romanesque armor and capes with massive amounts of scenery-chewing and an immortal robot bodyguard he occasionally has sex with. They have All The Clones in storage, so if he gets killed, they'll just transfer his memories and activate another one! Meanwhile the rebellion is being orchestrated as a 4000-step multi-century Xanatos gambit by a guy who started by having himself killed and activating a digital copy. Interestingly though, there is so much going on, and it's taking so much time for his plan to come to fruition, that it never really feels like the two of them directly pitted against each other (at least not that much), it's more like all of the stuff that happens along the way, the planets and the pretty spaceships and the people we meet who struggle and fight and save each other along the way.
I have to say that while I'm occasionally reminded by certain plot points and tropes that this is a series based on books from the 1970s, they did a good enough job with racebending, presumable genderbending, and so forth that it rarely feels like it. (Also, though I only know the books from general osmosis, I'm fairly confident the plot has gone way off-book anyway.) In season two there are no less than four young female characters of color in major plot-defining roles, there's a central gay couple whose loyalty to each other in the face of the Empire is a major plot point, and in general it's just a pretty, pretty show full of pretty people and pretty planets (and occasionally some really dazzling space-operatic SF stuff). It is definitely the most OTT and operatic thing I've watched since probably the MCU, and I'm really enjoying it.
Under the cut, out-of-order and largely out-of-context comments on various things I had a reaction to (mostly season 2 since that's where I got invested).
- This show is an emotional roller coaster of the highest order. How many different instances of presumed dead and identity-switching can we pack into a single episode?
- CONSTANT MY BELOVED. Season 2 in general gives great female characters, I already loved Salvo (;__;) and I also really enjoyed the ladies from the Cloud Dominion, but Constant!! She's just so funny and fun and so absolutely deadpan about everything from conning randos on some backwater alien planet to kidnapping a guy. I was so glad she lived through all of the half-dozen times she almost certainly should have died.
- I was surprisingly upset about formerly-trapped-in-the-Radiant half-crazy Harry's death, "surprisingly" because, well, Harry, and also, it wasn't like this leaves us entirely without Harry Seldons, there's still Creepy Monolith Harry and who knows how many other copies out there. But that one had been through enough with Gail and Salvo that he really felt like a different person. He's still a manipulative sack of dicks but I liked him! I was sad, but at least hoping he was backed up somewhere! And then two episodes later the most excellent reveal that he and Gail faked the whole thing! I thoroughly loved all of that. Gail hugging him! <333
- "Don't trust the planet of the creepy utopian space psychics!" Orion and I were chanting at the screen, while they proceeded to not listen to us and it was, predictably, a bad idea. Seriously, when in all of sci-fi was trusting the creepy psychic utopia a good idea?
- I had guessed/hoped that the guy with the whispership (can't remember his name) was going to warp into the plaza and save Constant from execution, but I really wasn't sure, and even with an inkling it was going to happen, that was an AMAZING entrance, A+++, no notes. Especially after Constant gave her speech and everything seemed to be setting her up to be a martyr to the Foundation, I was less and less hopeful she was going to get out of it alive somehow. Excellent rescue, very pleased.
- I really enjoyed the entire subplot with the Evil Empire Honorable Space Admiral (can't remember anyone's names here either) and the scene in which he justifies his continued loyalty to the Empire is really a good scene. I mean, it's awful. But you can see his reasoning. He can't overthrow the Empire, if he refuses orders it won't change anything, he and everyone he loves will die, and someone else will be put in his place and follow the orders anyway. But then the whole thing with Constant's rescue points out that it may not be possible to change the entire Evil Empire, but you can make a lot of difference for just one person.
- But I still wanted him to make better or at least different choices on the blowing up the planet sequence! I guess it all worked out according to Harry's 9999-step plan (my death is only the beginning! the death of my planet is only the beginning!) but that hurted.
- Between Honorable Space Admiral and his fighter pilot husband, I was absolutely *not* expecting the husband to be the one of the two of them that survived. However, Honorable Space Admiral and whispership guy got a dynamite final episode (the fistfight with Cleon! never has a man deserved so much punching! the airlock switch!) and they both got to go out in an excellent death scene.
- The entire thing with Terminus getting blown up! And then Deus Ex Monolith! And Constant's dads and Space Admiral's Space Husband are alive after the whole exploding planet fell on them! (I was SO happy Constant's family got reunited, I was so afraid she and Space Dads were going to go down each thinking the other one had died.) I think this episode gave me emotional whiplash.
- SALVO NO. WHAT WAS THAT EVEN. She just randomly died at the end there?? Come onnnnn. We already got like 12 death fake-outs in the last couple of episodes! Why'd that one have to be real?!
- If time passes differently in the monolith, does that mean the entire rescued Terminus population are still going to be around after the second 150-year timeskip? I have questions!
- Speaking of time passing differently in the monolith, best dialogue:
Whispership guy: Whoa, it's dark. How long was I in there, anyway?
Constant: Three years.
Paulie: More like three hours.
Constant: We agreed we weren't going to tell him!
I love them. <3333
- So that sure was A Lot with the Cleons. And now I guess there's an entire Cleon/Cloud Dominion dynasty out there somewhere just waiting to cause trouble.
So yeah, I'm really enjoying my bombastic sci-fi soap opera! Season 3 when pls.
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I've known about since it was announced because of Jared Harris, but I haven't been watching it because I don't have access to Apple TV+! All of the names I recognize in the cast are great! Everything I have heard about the show itself has sounded two hundred percent bonkers!
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I was afraid of this!
(I may ask
And yes, the show is 100% pure distilled essence of bananas. Absolutely unhinged, not a single hinge to be found.
It knows what it wants to be and it's being it for all it's worth!
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I haven't even tried it, because I have to admit, nothing new actually grabs me, at all. I don't generally get past trailers. I'm still amazed I actually kind of like World on Fire. :)
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I did read the Foundation trilogy in college when my English/biology double major friend Alex discovered that (a) I wrote sci-fi (I mean, he'd known that for a while) (b) I HAD NOT READ FOUNDATION, so he loaned me his omnibus and I devoured it. (It is very Of Its Time in Asimov-typical ways, but it genuinely had a lot of cool ideas. I haven't read your spoilers behind the cut but I can already think of ways they'd have to change it in adaptation just to make it, like, not bunches of people sitting in rooms all the time haha.)
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I haven't read most of the books! I think I did read one of the later ones at some point, but all I remember about it now are random disjointed scenes that don't have much to do with the show. On the other hand, I don't get the impression the show is too closely connected to the books anyway.
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Yes, it has diverged enormously from the books from all I've heard, which is not much.
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p.s.
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Later books start following a single manly hero going around in his spaceship doing… something. I don’t remember much except he picked up an inhumanly hot blonde woman named Bliss from a human colony that had mututated into a kind of perfect gestalt hive mind where everyone lives in hippy harmony (I want to say that she didn’t understand the purpose of clothing, but I may be conflating that with Piers Anthony). I remember the final book crossed over with his Robots series, where it turned out the robot detective from those sf mystery books had been patiently hanging around for 100,000+ years helping the Seldon plan stay on course. I think ultimately Manly Hero got to decide the fate of the human galaxy regarding whether or not to let Bliss infect everyone with the gestalt mind virus (I’m pretty sure he went down the “let’s turn everyone into free love loving hive entities”, of course)
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Thanks!
Of course, we have such a backlog of tv that I might get there by the time you're finishing s3. . . .