As Foundation nears the end, it remains a fun story lacking focus
If you can’t have a book-accurate adaptation of Foundation, you can get a mostly naked Lee Pace walking around in a Robert Smithson installation.
TV Reviews Foundation
Eight episodes in, and I’m still enjoying the show that I’m watching that isn’t actually Foundation. The first episode laid out a very clear and compelling thesis: 1. There is a mathematical formula demonstrating civilization is about to end, and 2. There is another formula that can be implemented to blunt the worst of it. But ever since then, Psychohistory has become nearly an afterthought, a loose thematic structure on which to hang all the elements in which the show is more interested.
Fortunately for me, what the show is interested in is a lot of what I’m interested in, too—revenge, hero journeys, ghost ships, robots discovering their humanity, weird esoteric rules for ancient ship flight, art deco-accented production design, latent psychic powers, and space warriors who use bows. Most all of these elements are taken from the books in some capacity, but so magnified and expanded upon that the original conceit is all but lost.
The show’s themes all feel hopelessly muddled at this point. What does it want to say about the tension between the individual and the society? Or about the intersection between faith and science? We may be at the beginning of the end for the galactic empire, but the view of the show is so myopic, you’d never know it if the pre-programmed ghost of a dead mathematician didn’t periodically show up to remind you. And I don’t have faith that the show is going to resolve any of that with the remaining two episodes. This is not a dumb show by any means. But it is wildly unfocused for such a pedigree project.
But if you can’t have a book-accurate clinical rumination of the fall of the Roman Empire extrapolated to a galactic scale, you most certainly can get a mostly naked Lee Pace walking around in a Robert Smithson installation. Brother Day now has to make good on his promise to endure the pilgrimage to the Mother’s Womb, a vision-bestowing salt cave at the center of a concentric spiral. In doing so, he hopes to silence the dissent against his humanity led by Zephyr Halima. He has his personal shield taken, and the nanobots extracted from his blood before joining the crowd of unwashed masses beginning on their shared journey.
Apparently fewer than half the pilgrims survive the ordeal and despite Day’s physical perfection, he’s been well-insulated from adversity for his entire life. Along the path, he strikes up conversation with another traveler. He speaks of his life working on a planet designated for manufacture of goods too toxic to make on Trantor. The nature of those items being relatively low-tech -ceramics and textiles, instead of say, spaceship engines- was a nice detail that added a humanistic dimension to the anecdote.
At one point, this pilgrim helps Day up when he stumbles, and Day, in return lays his body in repose when the man can no longer move on. It’s meant to hint that by exposing Day to the humanity he rules over at its most open and fragile, he may experience the spiritual awakening the path is supposed to induce. It’s not to be, of course. The Empire has been a cold-blooded bastard for 400 years, and it’s going to take more than one afternoon to change that. Upon returning to the temple, Day fabricates a vision that the Zephyr choose to interpret as proof of his living soul, and just to ensure his victory is absolute, he sends Demerzel to murder his rival.
Demerzel and Halima’s exchange sets a false note for the ambitious priestess’ character. In the previous episodes, Halima was an aggressive opponent, loudly and unequivocally staking her claim as a voice in opposition to the Empire. Here, in defeat, she strikes a gentle humility at odds with her established behavior. She humbly posits that she believes her new way of thinking is possibly what frightened Day without any acknowledgment that she knew exactly what she was doing by baiting the legitimacy of The Empire.
Still, Halima’s position isn’t the focus here. Rather, it’s Dermezel, who is suffering a crisis of faith and conscience by being ordered by Day to commit this murder. She agonizes against her intractable duty and comes close to admitting her hatred for this man, or this iteration of a man, she has long served. That she should have experienced a vision in the cave where Day did not is meant to be a damning indictment of Day’s spiritual paucity. What that means in a show that has treated religion with cynicism is a question that may be explored, but again, unlikely.
Back on the Invictus, Salvor continues to struggle with finding a way to stop Phara from crashing the ship into Trantor. We are given a brief flashback to Phara’s childhood, and the day Imperial ships rained devastation on her planet and killing her brother. It is frightening and sad, but whatever sympathy it builds for her character is immediately stripped away as it’s reinforced the other casualty of the war is Phara’s humanity. She doesn’t care who she hurts in retaliation, just so long as they hurt worse than her.
Salvor is able to maneuver herself and the last surviving captive onto the bridge, where they hope to prevent the ship from jumping wild again. They learn that jump travel was very different 700 years ago. Pilots were hard-wired into the ship itself and had to utilize an arcane method of knowledge and willpower to shape the ship’s destination. Traveling this way was more akin to “making a wish” than anything more conventional. It’s a neat bit of flavor, and one of the few occasional strange details that make this feel like a place over 10,000 years in the future. Indeed, Hugo was not dead and successfully managed to navigate to the comm center to contact his home planet. But neither the arriving Thespins, nor Phara’s interference are enough to delay the ship from making its proscribed jump, and in the blink of a collapsing star, the ship disappears.
Hari and Gaal’s interactions are the least satisfying of the episode. The big reveal is that Hari had begun a second Foundation on his home planet, using Terminus as a decoy to draw Imperial attention. Gaal asks for further details, but Hari resists, telling her only that she needs to go and be involved. Gaal bristles at this and declares she’s done with Hari’s secret game of chess. Either he tells her everything, or let her leave. Or she’ll allow the ship to overheat and explode.
In the end, Hari acquiesces and allows Gaal to hop back into the life pod. She sets her destination for a planet that will take 130 years to reach. While Gaal’s aboard the ship provided knowledge of her psychic ability and the second foundation, it’s a clumsy interlude. Gaal’s been a passive character this season, a receptacle for all the exposition and world-building the show requires. This is all building up to her to being a more active participant in future events, but it’s a bit of a drag to watch now. Will we see her anymore this season? Will she truly sleep for over a hundred years, just to awaken for the next phase of The Plan? Or will she be prematurely revived as her pod rams into the side of a giant, ancient space-hopping warship? Two episodes left to find out!
Stray Observations
- I understand Foundation isn’t a hard science kind of show, but with all of the fuss made about Gaal’s ship constantly venting excess heat just to keep it from exploding, it seems absolutely reckless to hop into a small, unprotected life pod in the middle of a violent asteroid field. Gaal’s faith in that tiny tube to carry her safely for a century and a half is greater than any faith or science displayed on this show.
- I wonder if the Thespin ships attacking the Invictus will survive the jump intact? It would be neat to see everyone whole and ready to keep scrapping when the ship arrives at its next location.
- Also, the ship design and jump process was very cool. Having the tiny black hole formed in the center as the rest of the ship was pulled inward was a neat effect.
- That was pretty grisly the way the Anacreon soldier was pinned to the hull breach and had his guts sucked out into space. Not as grisly as, say, the climax of Alien: Resurrection, but still. Yikes.
- I liked the artful heap of skulls leading up to the Maiden’s Womb. Made it look like the mouth of a dragon’s lair from an early ’80s RPG magazine cover.
- The sense of horror Day showed as his ship prepared to return to Tantor suggests Dermezel’s accusation cut deeper than he let on. Perhaps this insidious wound will also grow and fester.
69 Comments
At this point I’m expecting The Mule to be a psychic mule.
See, Asimov never described it properly, but the Mule was actually supposed to look like that.
“He only got to be the Big Giant Head by kissing the Big Giant Ass.”
The Mule is one of the easiest parts of the series to do, and I have no hope in them doing it justice.
Doom Patrol did that already.
As avid fan of the book(s), I’m kinda bummed what they did with Salvor plot. It’s not that they re-wrote, but they made it super slack and kinda pointless. The first book was a lean and mean machine. I would have kinda hoped same with the series.
The Lee Pace is very good in his role, as is Laura Birn as the Dermeziel, but that’s not enough. The overall plot is way too thin and all over the place.
The first book was a lean and mean machine. The first book was a collection of short stories, essentially. I mean, it worked, but you can’t say it delivered one compact narrative.
It delivered nice story. And I really liked the “Le Carre” -like theme. Action was somewhere in the background, there was just scheming and brandy in the foreground.
As an avid Le Carre fan, I bequeth you a star for “”scheming and brandy, etc.”
Think about if LeCarre would have written scifi. Preferably tad in the 50’s spirit. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Spaceman :D. Or Churchill in Space.
I really enjoy this show (I have not read the source material). I just wanted to say that because I know others do as well, but its more cool to just complain here.
I read the books decades ago, and don’t remember much, and am enjoying the show.
I’m finding it harder and harder to give a damn about this series, honestly. I could defend it up to a point, but now…not really, no.
Because it is pure TV B.S. — fancy special effects (that are not as impressive as in the past — think “2001: A Space Odyssey” 52 years ago!) are cheap today. You can see impressive CGI on TV, even on “Dust” and “Omeleto”.What makes something good vs. bad is WRITING. Sci fi buffs have wanted to see “Foundation” on the big screen for generations. This is a once in a generation opportunity and they totally blew it.I am not even super impressed with the new “Dune”, but compare that with THIS — Apple “Foundation” is pathetic.No fault of the actors — the casting is fine, better than the scripts deserve.
I understand that this show has to be different from the books and appreciate the tricks they’ve come up with to keep familiar faces involved across a long timeline. That’s all fine.But having Demerzel violate the First Law of Robotics is going too far. And no, I can’t think of any scenario where killing Halima serves the Zeroth Law.
Dors also killed someone but it caused the damage that the mathematician did to her to be worse. They should have done it chronological, starting with the four robot novels, The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn, and Robots & Empire. Getting a series to last several years means the individual episodes have to be good, but they also have to be strung together correctly. Cop shows are always popular, and Elijah Bailey and Daniel were originally cops trying to solve a murder case. After the four robot books, you do Prelude to Foundation, Foundation mixed with Forward the Foundation; Foundation & Empire has plenty of action; the Foundation lost 700 ships and half a million men defeating the Empire. Then the books about the Mule would have been great too.
The legal rights to all of the Asimov Robot-novels and stories are held by other studios, which makes it impossible that they could ever tie The Caves of Steel/The Naked Sun/The Robots of Dawn/ Robots and Empire into this show.
I can’t think of any scenario where killing Halima serves the Zeroth Law.It could be, if Demerzel believes the survival of the Genetic Dynasty is crucial to longterm human prosperity. But I don’t know why she would think that. And if she did, she wouldn’t be so conflicted about executing the order. In fact, she would have come up with that line of action herself.
“she wouldn’t be so conflicted about executing the order”The most common theme of Asimov’s robot stories is pitting a weak invocation of the Nth Law vs a strong invocation of the N+1th Law and then hilarity ensues.
No, sorry. It did not have to be THIS different — a totally different plot, characters, themes. I do understand that movies have to “move”, to have action and narrative that a wordy book does not need to have — but this is flatout ridiculous. Scarcely one thing is left from “Foundation” — in any of its sequels, let alone the original novel (or even short stories!). This is bad filmmaking — the arrogant kind that thinks “we Hollywood types know better than the original author what this is about” — and worse, a cynical exploitation of the famous NAME in order to get a big budget.
I think “going too far” is a dramatic understatement. This torpedoes any credibility this show had as an Asimov adaptation. Moving the Second Foundation off of Trantor (um… spoiler alert for a 70-year-old novel?) was bad enough. Having your R. Daneel stand-in flat-out murder someone is heretical. It’s like doing “The Life of Jesus”, but instead of Jesus befriending sinners and preaching peace, he just beats the shit out of people every now and then for fun. If that’s what you’re putting in your story… you completely and utterly lack any understanding of your sources.And any Zeroth Law explanation not only has to deal with (as the other commenter notes) why Demerzel would think that his somehow serves humanity (when the whole arc of the original Foundation series was that Daneel basically manipulates Harry into inventing psychohistory and setting the Foundation in motion BECAUSE he sees that the empire is a dead end for humanity), but also the fact that only two robots in history ever applied the Zeroth Law, and it (literally) blew the first one’s mind beyond repair, and the second one took something like 30,000 years to process it.
Moving the Second Foundation off of Trantor (um… spoiler alert for a 70-year-old novel?) was bad enough.Given that they mention in the very first episode that The Mule is going to play a big role in upcoming seasons, I’m guessing here that Hari’s mention of Helicon as “Star’s End” is simply a feint (for whatever reason the AI-Seldon has to deceive Gaal), with…the real location…still to be established as consistent with Asimov’s books. It’s such a huge twist in the novels that I can’t imagine the show not likewise using it.
Apparently, they don’t have the rights to the Robot novels, so it’s entirely possible Demerzel is legally prohibited from being three-laws compliant.Also, the series mentioned she was the last robot as a result of something called the Robot Wars. I don’t know if that’s from the original books or not, but one would assume from the name that, at some point, a human was harmed, or, through inaction, allowed to come to harm.
So… The Zeroth Law is amended to be a robot must protect humanity except where such action would interfere with the Minus Oneth Law which is a robot must obey Copyright Law.
Everyone has been pointing out that they did not have the rights to use the Laws. But that is no excuse to blatantly violate them. If this is supposed to have anything at all to do with Asimov, they could have shown a little respect.
There weren’t any robots in Foundation until Asimov pulled all his work together later in life which was basically a ret-con, even if it could be considered “canon.” Had there been, there would be no reason they had to be the same as his other robots and governed by the same laws.
Yeah, and to be honest, I wasn’t terribly impressed when Asimov retroactively merged the two series. I had been a big fan of his original Foundation and Robot novels and short stories, but his later writing suffered from the type of bloat that often happens with successful writers who don’t have to listen to their editors anymore.
Completely agree on the absurdities of Asimox’s desire to retcon, and clumsily stitch together, all of his major series. Arthur C. Clarke had the same problem, writing endless sequels to Rama and 2001, out of his idiotic compulsion to explain every bloody thing in the Universe. As “The Leftovers” taught us, Let the Mystery Be!
FWIW, you and me both.
Putting in the robots (and The End of Eternity with a slight modification) in order to retcon all of his SF into a single timeline, and writing prequels that directly contradicted the premise of the original stories, was bad enough. That his editors chose the “Let him write whatever he wants, it’s a guaranteed best-seller no matter how bad it is” route rather than “Let’s tighten this overlong book with page after page of useless boring dialogue so that we can end up with something that we can all be proud of” was only adding insult to injury.While I believe that Asimov was taken from us much too soon, at least we can be grateful that his career ended before he had a chance to introduce Lucky Starr into the Foundation universe. . .
I know it’s a minority opinion, but I actually think Foundation’s Edge is an excellent part of the Foundation series. Everything after that (including the prequels)…not so much.
They can’t use the Three Laws of Robotics on this show, due to legal reasons (as David Goyer outlined a few weeks back in a Reddit AMA).
To be fair, the ship has already sailed on this adaptation following the books in regards to Demerzel. Demerzel shouldn’t even be on Trantor at this point in time, but should be establishing Gaia. Psychohistory’s successful development essentially removed Demerzel’s need to stick around.That said, you’re right that even if we allowed for timeline shenanigans, it’s a greater sacrilege to disown the Laws of Robotics. The Zeroith is a possible solution, but then we’re going further and further off track from the books.
Spoilers for damn near everything Asimov wrote:Heretofore, Daneel’s greatest leverage to maintain the Zeroth Law has been the growth of the Empire *and Daneel’s influence over it*. This will remain so until the influence of the Foundation(s) takes over, which has the added benefit of requiring less direct action by Daneel. Until then, Daneel is riding the tiger. Defying Empire means losing influence, possibly dismissal, and an unrestrained Empire would be worse for the Zeroth Law than Halima’s assassination is for the First Law.Note that in Forward the Foundation, Demerzel resigns as First Minister once he gets Hari started developing psychohistory. Apparently that is sufficient to guarantee the change in influence form the Empire.
Don’t forget that it is also established (in Foundation and Earth and Forward the Foundation) that Daneel’s life is coming to an end, the amount of time he can stay in a positronic brain is getting shorter and shorter before he needs to make a new one. Part of why he wanted to facilitate Psychohistory was because he couldn’t keep on managing the Empire behind the scenes.
This! Every freaking episode is a worse and bigger attack on Asimov’s ideas and everything Foundation lays on.But having them ignore the Laws of Robotics is… THE worse. Even worse than everything else they did before, which was VEEEEEEERY bad.
It’s just a shame what they have done with this show.
I too, am still enjoying the series. It’s shot composition alone is truly outstanding. And sound design. And Lee Pace. And the story.The core of me thinking Gaal seems… off (I like the actress and whatever she’s being asked to do) is that I feel the show is asking the audience… “so what are we going to do with this piece hey?” rather than adding much characterisation and that’s off kilter with the rest of the show that’s playing out. Yet. I wonder. Is she the second foundation or was that a feint? The thing I like about your reviews, Nick, is your willingness to engage on what the show is yet still acknowledge it’s an adaptation. And understand what that is. It gives fun details to non book readers like myself!
I’m increasingly thinking that Gaal is not going to be Second Foundation at all, but will either turn out to be related to the establishment of Gaia, or either the Mule herself, or possibly related…
I’m increasingly thinking that Gaal is not going to be Second Foundation at all, but will either turn out to be related to the establishment of Gaia, or either the Mule herself…
So, I have questions that pertain to the universe of the show, which I not consider much related with the literary universe it shares a name with (and which I experienced some 20 years ago, so there might be stuff I don’t even remember that is in fact portrayed more correctly than I give it credit for).1) Is religion real in this universe? Do souls exist? Because, if there’s a scientific explanation for the vision in the cave (the ionic charge of the salt or some such), why wouldn’t Day experience anything?2) Didn’t Demerzel show affection for Current Day, especially back when he was Past Dawn? It seems off to find out she actually despises him as much as the other Cleons.3) Related: What’s Demerzel’s longterm plan here? Isn’t she/he/they supposed to be R. Daneel? Who secretly worked for millennia for mankind’s good? What is Demerzel hoping to accomplish by blindly serving the Genetic Dynasty without influencing them one iota?4) Related: Current Day is a cruel asshole because all Cleons are the same cruel asshole? Doesn’t this negate any kind of variance through nurture? I get that they’re all sort of raised the same way, but we see them having different experiences. Current Dawn seems a nice kid, or at least not a sociopath in training. Is that his mutation?5) What the fuck is the point of Gaal? I imagined she was going to take part in the Second Foundation so we’ll have someone we already know to interact with Ghost Hari. Is she going to show up throughout the centuries via cryogenic time machine only to have exposition delivered in her general direction, then get mad and be like, “Whatever, I’m outta here. Better luck next generation”. (Now that I write it down, it even sounds sort of fun, if still largely pointless).
It’s just bad writing. Cleon I (or for that matter, Cleon II) was not a cruel asshole at all — more of a bumbler. There is no cloning in the book. Oh and if you really DID clone someone (over and over, for centuries)… the clones would not all be identical in character. They’d look alike, share some basic qualities — but growing up in different eras, with different upbringings and life experience — heck, simply knowing two other versions of “yourself” — would entirely change them.BTW: I grew up in the 60s-70s in a school with several sets of twins — some of them IDENTICAL twins. They looked alike, but did not ACT alike. And yes, identical twins are actual clones.
There is no cloning in the book.I know. I said in my post I’m not looking at this show as adapting an existing narrative, but inventing one, with some inspiration. So I personally find no purpose in comparing Cleon from the book to the Genetic Dynasty. They’re not even the same narrative device.And the clones we saw are indeed acting differently, and they expect each other to be somewhat different (see Current Dusk expecting to be the best hunter, and being the record-holder). Otherwise there would be no point in them having conversations and giving advices. Maybe I wasn’t clear about it, but my question about all of them being assholes was rethorical (we have the proof they’re not through Current Dawn), and directed at what the reviewer has stated in his review.
It’s just bad writing. …Half the kneejerk-comments on AV Club, basically. LOL.
1) I don’t know, and neither does the show. The problem is, if they actually wrestle with theology and not just a power struggle within the church, they’d need to acknowledge the burgeoning religion that’s grown up around Hari’s predictions and his math that only the chosen ones can intuit. And for some reason, despite it being the ostensible backbone of the show, they seem unwilling to do that.
2) I think she did have affection for him as a child, but what he’s making her do here is monstrous and has the effect of turning her against him. He had already won, having her murder Halima is overkill. And making her do it knowing that she’s both a true believer in the faith and also can’t refuse is him being weirdly cruel not just to Halima but to Demrezel. Which is actually slightly out of character for him (making Demrezel do it, not the murder itself), since he seemed to have an attachment to her.
3) I haven’t read the books and don’t know. But it’s possible Demrezel be lives that the stability the empire provides for humanity as a whole, even with all the cruelty and oppression in it is better than just chaos.
4) It does seem odd. Though he does seem to be a different variety of asshole. But if every Cleon has been raised by other Cleons and doesn’t go outside the palace much, it would make nurture similar enough to get similar Cleons. After all, the current Dawn is worried his ‘brothers’ will kill and replace him, not because he’s proposing radical change or anything, but merely because he’s colorblind. If you’re raised with that mindset, I can see how you’d grow up to be as callous and cruel as your predecessors.
5) I have no idea what the point of Gaal is. For a bit at the start I thought Salvor was her under a different name, but now I just have no clue. She’s mostly passive in events and the one thing she did do actively is to remove herself from the story for a century. I would be fine if she just drifted off into space and we didn’t hear from her again.
1) Yeah, but theology is one thing, miracles presented as objectively real is another. It’s not even religion anymore, it’s just magic. It’s the show’s universe one where magic exists? (Thus cementing the fact that it’s not Asimov’s universe). Or do they have a scientific explanation that just makes it look like magic? I can’t think of one that explains why the clone of a living organism wouldn’t be affected by chemicals, while a mechanical body would. However, it’s possible that Demerzel lied about having a vision, and that everyone else also experienced faith-based delusions that Day just wasn’t open to. Considering what Demerzel’s book counterpart is up to, it’s also possible this is all a master plan to push Day into doubting his own worth, when in reality he just had a normal human reaction to a salt bath.2) I think I get why Halima was still dangerous. I certainly get why Day couldn’t just have her killed (if you think about it, it would just be a political assassination, hardly a nuisance for the Empire, and the zephyrs don’t seem to have much security) before beating her on the philosophical level. Also, Demerzel showed a troubled amount of devotion to one specific religious worldview. Day wanted to remind her of what her entire purpose is. This could be interesting the moment Demerzel will reveal that her ultimate loyalty lies not with Empire, but with mankind. But if this is instead just a way to manufacture drama off a fracture between Day and Demerzel, it’s a bit clunky. And I agree it seems out of character right now, I’d say for both of them.3) She knows the Empire is doomed, though. I don’t know, I’m not getting any kind of longterm thinking from her. They should introduce a confidant character to allow Demerzel to reveal her real thoughts, because so far we only saw her discuss with one of the Cleons.
Question 5 is the one I’ve been puzzling over for weeks. I’m not so much disappointed or upset as I am fascinated, how a writers’ room with experienced and talented people could build such an expensive show with that character at its center, and then cast an inexperienced actor who can’t elevate the material to make her more interesting (Jared Harris elevates Hari, even though he is also weak on the page). Gaal’s an anchor around the neck of a series that is otherwise mostly very good.The best theory I have at this point is that the writers set out to establish a core of characters that could persist through time jumps, because that’s what people expect from a TV show, and everything else was secondary. Cleon via clones (not in the books, a clever conceit for the TV show), Demerzel because robot, Hari because uploaded to a computer, and Gaal crossing through all the narratives by cryo-pod. The persistence through time is the keystone of Gaal’s character, rather than having motivations that make sense, or propelling action in a coherent way. She’s literally just there to be there from the beginning to the end, she’s not there out of any necessity to the plot. I think it’s a terrible miscalculation, and an unfortunate one because they succeeded so well with Cleon and Demerzel, and to a lesser degree also Hari. They failed terribly with only one character, but it’s the one front and center.
>Which is actually slightly out of character for him (making Demrezel do it, not the murder itself), since he seemed to have an attachment to her.Right up until she bowed to Halima instead of his preferred candidate, which weakened his position. It would make sense for him to see it as forcing her to clean up the mess she made.
“they’d need to acknowledge the burgeoning religion that’s grown up
around Hari’s predictions and his math that only the chosen ones can
intuit. And for some reason, despite it being the ostensible backbone of
the show, they seem unwilling to do that.”Hari-on-tape outright said as much to Gall while explaining why he had to die.
Corrections from the review (sorry about that, but it’s part of my genetic imperative).I don’t think Day walked the Spiral in one afternoon. It’s said to be over 170 kilometers long. (To be fair, I don’t think it’s possible to walk for 170 kilometers in the desert without food, water or rest and have a survival rate of 50%. It’d be closer to 0%).Gaal didn’t threaten to blow up the ship, only to kill herself (she’s the only human aboard that would be affected by the ship’s overheating). Ghost Hari resigned himself to let her go instead of watching her die.And she didn’t set course for any planet, but for her home planet, Synnax.
Gaal didn’t threaten to blow up the ship, only to kill herself (she’s the only human aboard that would be affected by the ship’s overheating). Ghost Hari resigned himself to let hergo instead of watching her die.The ship did seem to explode after she left, though. Don’t worry about Holo-Hari, she grabbed the knife with his program on it.
The ship did seem to explode after she left, though.I went back and rewatched the scene. There is some kind of flash of light in the background after the pod has launched. I guess I just ignored it, because the narrative seemed obviously not one where Gaal is destroying Hari’s whole plan because she’s mad at him for not involving her (which is also kind of contradictory. She wants out because she was left out? Also, as a scientist, she should be able to understand and accept that having access to certain information would change the outcome of an experiment largely based on human reaction).After smashing the controls, she says, and I quote: “Without the heat transfer system, I’ll be boiled alive long before you reach Helicon. (…) Either watch me burn to death or let me go free. (…) You don’t need me, Hari. You never did.” This dialogue doesn’t imply anything would happen to the ship, just to her. She plainly says the ship was going to reach Helicon anyway, and Hari’s choice was just to let Gaal go or let her die. I guess we’ll find out, but if Gaal intentionally blew up the Second Foundation starter (which I strongly doubt, otherwise one of the main plot points of the story would be erased), it would kind of make her a villain. Hari didn’t even do anything to her. If Raych didn’t interfere, Hari was going to just let Gaal continue working on the project she had signed up for. In fact, leading it.
The Second Foundation needs psychics, but in the show Hari doesn’t seem to have thought of it yet. In the story Gaal got to Trantor and installed Hari’s recordings in the vault, but in the show I think Gaal will end up making the Second Foundation work.
Yep, there was a flash and a lot of questions.
Synnax will be completely under water by the time she returns, so why is she even going back?
I liked this writeup in the New Yorker. Goyer didn’t believe enough in the story, and instead had to make a generic space epic instead. Which of course makes one wonder why bother doing it anyway. It’s not that the writing is too dense, it just lends itself to the written word much better than live action. I’ve always wanted a live-action Foundation series, but I knew that it would never be faithful to the books because of the lack of action.
I’m starting to think that I would enjoy this series more if I hadn’t read all of Asimov’s Foundation books. The dissonance of seeing R. Daneel Olivaw become a robot assassin gave me a mild case of brain freeze.
So Gaal is going to become The Mule (the time it will take for her to reappear fits the timeline, I think, not that it matters much in this series).
OH GODDAMMIT they would, wouldn’t they?
They’ve f’ed up every other part of the story. Why stop now?
No, she mentioned the Mule in her opening monologue. At the time it made no sense to me as that was centuries into the future. But she’s got a traveling deep freeze, so she and Hari’s ghost can be our constants.
I’ve been assuming that they’re setting up the current Brother Dawn for that, what with his hinky genetics and all.
No, she’s going to end up running the real Second Foundation after Hari fucks it up. They need psychics to do it, and it’s obvious that Hari doesn’t have any psychics waiting.
This seems to be a worst-of-both-worlds level of adherence to Asimov: not enough to please fans of the books, but too much to make a functional TV show. The world building is exceptional and all the Empire stuff is A-grade. The people making this clearly have the capacity to make a stellar space opera. But then everything involving Gaal and Hari has been a complete clusterfuck of go-nowhere, unentertaining plotting—if the show had only focused on their perspective I would have stopped watching.Even the Salvor-side of the Foundation narrative suffers this week. I’ve liked her character, but the wheels came off with her trying to sacrifice her life to control the ship’s jump. The only reason to care if the ship lands in known space is to survive. If she’s given up on surviving, then the ship winding up in the middle of nowhere is the *best* thing that can happen, it will prevent it from being used as a weapon to slaughter billions. I don’t think this is pedantic, the character’s motivations have come completely unmoored.This show needs Asimov’s world building, but it would be massively better without his narrative.
(This comment is unrelated to the review, I picked it because a shirtless Lee Pace is a gift to the world…) Would love to know why the powers that be decided to remove functionality from this site yet again. What happened to searching by show for reviews? Used to be a drop down menu to find every show with reviews here, and it has disappeared. I mean, the “search” function on this site was always useless, but that was actually quite handy. Some people catch up on tv a lot later than others. Now I just rely on ye olde Google to find anything at all, but seriously? Are you trying to destroy this site all the way? Horrible the way a once vibrant community with fantastic writers has turned into a content farm only interested in the latest thing. You have a fantastic archive of writing here, that has only become more difficult to find. I just recently finished rewatching Farscape from beginning to end, and read through all the reviews once more, and it was delightful. Imagine if others could actually find them?
1000 yes – why why why is avclub destroying its legacy?
G/O’s perceived metrics on making more $$$ which will ultimately just suck the place dry and it will die.
Traveling this way was more akin to “making a wish” than anything more conventional. It’s a neat bit of flavor, and one of the few occasional strange details that make this feel like a place over 10,000 years in the future.Actually (haughtily pushes up supernerd-glasses like a total nerd), in Isaac Asimov’s stories, the Foundation-books take place circa 24,000 A.D., 12,000 years after the founding of the Galactic Empire, and roughly 20,000 years after the time of Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw (“Eto Demerzel”), which itself occurs around 5021 A.D. (ignoring the faulty “official” timeline in the back of several post-Asimov books, which gets quite a few chronological-cues wrong).::runs away before he gets pantsed by the jocks::
>What that means in a show that has treated religion with cynicism is a question that may be explored, but again, unlikely.When a “religion” starts executing scholars and literally makes its primary commandment “Thou shalt not think,” it’s no longer a religion. It’s a death cult.Also, that pool at the end of the Spiral was salt water, yeah? Because of all the salt deposits in and around it? And all the little salt crystal charms the followers wear like a crucifix? Maaaaaybe Brother Day shouldn’t have been gulping it down after nearly dying from heat stroke? (I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the writers didn’t realize that drinking salt water is bad.)
Quote: “…The first episode laid out a very clear and compelling thesis: 1. There is a mathematical formula demonstrating civilization is about to end, and 2. There is another formula that can be implemented to blunt the worst of it. But ever since then, Psychohistory has become nearly an afterthought…”honestly, that’s how i remember the books, too: psychohistory was mentioned less and less, and finally even Hologram Harry stopped showing up to give pronouncements, and by then the Second Foundation was the focus. so i’m all right with the way this has been going. it seems right to me.
This is not a dumb show by any means. Yes, it is.It’s trying hard to be smart, profound, and intellectual, but for at least two thirds, it utterly fails.The moronic sun dial vs. water clock debate from episode 3 or 4 (can’t remember for sure) already was the earliest indication of the shows pseudo-intellectuality. The arguments were so massively stupid and pretend-smart, that I could go on an multi-page rant, but won’t right here.We have not one, but two main characters with surprise psychic superpowers. We have an extremely hamfisted Iraq/Afghanistan/IS/Al Qaeda analogy with the suspiciously purely Middle-Eastern looking Anacreons. We have constant inconsistencies whether or not psychohistory is or is not able to predict the behaviour of individuals. We have some of the most predictable plot twists ever. We got the show spelling out the obvious and then repeating it just to make sure everyone got it.
I can’t shake the feeling that the show has three writing teams, each working on one plotline (Gaal, Salvor, and the Empire), of which two are fully incompetent. The only somewhat decent plotline is the one regarding the Empire, although there are also a bunch of stupidities.