Apple TV's Foundation is Simply...Not That Good

Sheehan Planas-Arteaga
1 day ago
5 min read

It is what it is. Foundation on Apple TV has some major flaws.

So I just finished Foundation, Apple TV’s most ambitious project ever, a sprawling sci-fi epic based on Isaac Asimov’s trilogy. I haven’t read a ton of Asimov’s work, including his Foundation series, but what I have read I’ve enjoyed. The visuals looked stunning. I love Jared Harris as an actor. I generally like sci-fi. Foundation checked off a lot of my boxes as I sat on my couch last fall in need of a new show. With three seasons already out, my wife and I decided to take the plunge.

We caught up last night with the finale of Season 3. Although I’ve read a ton of rave reviews about this show, which covers the rise and fall of a galactic dynasty, I have something I must get off my chest…

Foundation is simply not that good. Here are some of the reasons I believe that:

***MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW***

Superpowers > Personality

It was hammered in our brains early on that Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell), our heroine, was special. Only one person in the whole galaxy could stand on the level of the great Hari Seldon (Harris) when it came to mathematics, and that was young Gaal. Fine, I’ll take it. She’s Will from Good Will Hunting, and Hari is Dr. Lambeau, who tries to develop her significant skills in a somewhat self-serving way, which causes conflict. Everything’s fine about this.

However, Gaal seems to pick up a new superpower every few episodes. She isn’t just the galaxy’s foremost expert on psychohistory and all things math, she can also control other people with her mind, is almost unbeatable in combat and firearms, and apparently is able to leap out of a spaceship and glide her way through a planet’s upper atmosphere and onto a waiting aircraft, like she did in the Season 3 finale. It was a stunt that would've made Tom Cruise say, "eh, seems a bit over the top."

And yet, despite Gaal effectively becoming a goddess, she’s still just boring. I found myself tuning out whenever the show switched to her storyline. I can predict the scene will include some sort of sweeping debate about the Prime Radiant and all its implications, and/or a mashup of her being a badass. Yawn. Her superiority over everyone around her, even Hari, coupled with the show not revealing other aspects of her personality, has made her a bore, not unlike the problem some people have with a character like Superman.

Ingrained Apathy

After Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey) bit the dust at the end of Season 2, which felt wildly unnecessary, our only real through lines in Foundation are Gaal, Hari, and Demerzel (Laura Birn). It’s natural for us to be apathetic towards the Cleons, and pretty much any character who isn’t Gaal, Hari, and Demerzel, since we don’t get to spend much time with any of them. There’s really no way around this, unfortunately, since the show crosses such a long period of time.

I haven’t read the books (I will before the fourth season comes out, some time in 2027), but I don’t think this built-in hurdle makes Foundation a bad idea for the screen; there are simply too many interesting premises. But it is certainly an issue that makes it hard for the viewer to get invested in characters.

The Mule Twist

The Mule was a good villain, and one who was different from the ones who preceded him in Foundation in that he wanted to upend everything for both sides of the core conflict: the Cleons vs. the Foundation. Not unlike the Night King in Game of Thrones, who functions as the overarching villain who gives all characters a common enemy, the Mule destroyed everyone in his path, no matter which side of the coin they fell on. Pilou Asbæk (a Game of Thrones alum, ironically) did a fantastic job playing the unhinged conqueror of worlds.

But hey, screw all that, right? The real Mule has been hiding in plain sight this whole time, as a futuristic social influencer named Bayta (Synnøve Karlsen). The actual Mule had Gaal dead to rights at the close of Season 3, though Gaal escapes in seconds (shocker) with the help of her magic DJ, Magnifico (Tómas Lemarquis).

Dumb twist. The Mule we knew was apparently just some schmuck Bayta chose as her proxy. Pilou Asbæk was killing it in the role, and if it really was Bayta pulling the strings the entire time, that means she is able to project her influence across the galaxy, since she was hardly ever near the puppet Mule (Asbæk) while he was running roughshod over everyone in his path. Having to be in somewhat close proximity at least gave characters a chance to plan a counterattack against the mental powers of the Mule. This big reveals means she should have kicked everyone’s ass a long time ago. But, of course, no one can stand up to Gaal Dornick. I fully expect her to have picked up the power of flight when Season 4 airs.

Will there be a test on this?

The lore of Foundation is expansive and complicated. And boy, do they love hitting you with history lessons. This is hard on the viewer when you couple it with the issue I mentioned earlier; we don’t/can’t care about most of the characters. So now I’m forced to watch someone I don’t have any feelings towards wax poetic about something I can barely understand. It’s tough connecting the dots. Should I be taking notes?

In general, Foundation overfloweth with dialogue. I will say, the Isaac Asimov work I have read is much the same. Practically every chapter features an intrinsic philosophical debate about the nature of man/robot/society/etc. This is easier to read than it is to watch, but it is certainly Asimov-y.

Still, this type of thing makes a 45-minute episode feel like an hour. Season 3 did a much better job of keeping the ball rolling, but overall, a lot of stuff in this show felt like self-indulgent fluff.

Worth Starting?

The visuals are stunning. The acting, specifically from the three Cleons, is excellent (Lee Pace is dynamite as Brother Day going through an existential crisis in Season 3). The action, when it graces your screen, is top-notch. Foundation just has some fundamental flaws that make it drag far too much. I don’t think I’ve ever paused a show to check how much was left more than I have with Apple TV’s crown jewel of sci-fi (I’m more of a Silo man anyway).

I’ll watch Season 4 when it comes out. I don’t hate Foundation as much as I am frustrated by it. If you’re entranced by galactic politics and don’t mind sitting through Intro to Psychohistory 101 for an hour at a time, give Foundation a try. But if you need a little more flavor and speed in your shows, keep scrolling.