Respectfully, I find the Foundation TV series extremely disheartening. I envy those who can watch Lee Pace’s triumphant acting without being completely off put by the appalling writing choices in the show. The fundamental aspects of the Robot, Empire, and Foundation series books clashe so hard with the message being presented in this show. The entire first season doggedly trashed psychohistory’s main point by making single individuals into linchpins. Hari’s double AI clones and his contrived disease was an abomination that undercut his entire function in the story. Demerzel (R Daneel Olivaw) is utterly without connection to their character from the book. It is infuriating to see a character that spent 18 books gently and intelligently guiding humanity towards a harmonious existence be turned into a Cleon sex doll muderbot. None of that should have been possible for them. It would have shredded their mind. In what universe can this character presented be guiding humans towards galaxia or second empire. The “believe in belief” motif of the show is antithetical to Azimovs clearly atheistic writing and goes counter to the whole message of his books. Intellectual pragmatism is replaced by dice rolling space cowboys. In the same way star trek has devolved from following hyper specialized intellectual duty-bound characters to flagrantly stupid/morally reprehensible ones, foundation has made its primary characters into people who ride on luck and faith.
All of this rant comes from a place of geniune distress and I don’t mean to disparage anyone who enjoys the show. I’ve seen so much praise and it’s causing me a lot of cognitive dissonance. I can’t see how people aren’t up in arms about Demerzel and the other character assassinations. I have no issue at all with any of the actor choices, design, artistry, or extraneous changes made to update the show to be a modern adaptation. There are even some good ideas, like the clone dynasty, which serve to enrich the story, but the flaws are to many to overlook. Are there any other foundation universe fans that feel the same way or am I living alone on the moon with a deteriorating positronic brain?
No I’m right there with you man, Lee and Jared are doing their best but omg it just broken everywhere else.
I think there’s a lot of room for Demerzel to unfold into something really cool, but, the rest of the writing is just wow wrong.
I gave them all of S1 as runway because it’s a tough story and you need to build up, but S2 is far worse, they’re breaking all the good will they created and making it even more of a terrible S8 GoT ripoff.
There’s still time though, 2 episodes isn’t a whole season, maybe things somehow get sorted out.
But omg I hate genius-magic-jedi Gaal, really, deeply hate her, Salvor is fine, she has an actual character with agency, but Gaal is by far the worst character I’ve seen this year in anything really. A clairvoyant genius who spends almost the entire time doing things without understanding why and freaking out. They tried to take Raych’s daughter in the books and twist her into a whole other arc, but it completely fell apart because they didn’t spend the right time on buildup, it’s like the DC school of “step 1: birth and origin story, step 2: kill God”
They needed 2 changes: 1. Gaal needed to be a mysterious character that people followed and searched after, to untangle the true meaning of Hari’s plan, and 2: SET. STAGES. We spent 2 precious episodes on a dead planet with a magic wood hut that somehow floats through hurricanes that would destroy NYC, literally the most boring planet in the galaxy, and getting there cost us 130 years because Gaal didn’t want to even meet the 2nd foundation, the writers who went along with that need to be veiled forever.