Foundation

Foundation – When a Book Finds You / The Stress of Her Regard

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Foundation – When a Book Finds You / The Stress of Her Regard
  • IMDb: link | link

As the Mule‘s (Pilou Asbæk) influence on Kalgan continues to grow, something which Han Pritcher (Brandon P Bell) gets a glimpse of for himself, “When a Book Finds You” and “The Stress of Her Regard” develop the partnership between Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) and Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton). Flashbacks explore how their conversations began while the current crisis forces Dawn into a difficult decision heading into a cliffhanger with not one but two Cleons abandoning their posts as Demerzel‘s (Laura Birn) actions to end his his problematic romance to a woman who worships robots which in turn forces Brother Day (Lee Pace) to leave the palace as well. As one heads to the stars to a future he can’t fathom, the other dives deep into the planet in search of  something lost.

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Foundation – Shadows in the Math

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Foundation – Shadows in the Math
  • IMDb: link

“Shadows in the Math” opens with a narrated montage filling in some of the history of the Second Foundation by showcasing Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) and Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) awoken from cryosleep for a few weeks at a time teaching Psychohistory to the generations of the hidden Foundation, working to help the Foundation grow and weaken the Empire, and preparing them to fight the Mule (making another huge divergence to the original source material where Seldon’s original calculations didn’t account for unpredictable mutations like the Mule pulling the ebb of history so far off his predicted path). Eventually, Seldon chooses to stay awake at longer intervals to keep things on track prior to his death before the show bounces back to the “present” and the time of the Mule (Pilou Asbæk).

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Foundation – A Song for the End of Everything

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Foundation – A Song for the End of Everything
  • IMDb: link

It doesn’t take long into the first episode of the new season of Foundation to remind me of my problems with the series. “A Song for the End of Everything” isn’t centered around the Foundation, although we do get one scene involving a single character (Alexander Siddig) taking with the Hari Seldon AI (Jared Harris), which ultimately doesn’t add anything to the story (other than get the Star Trek actor on-screen), the focus almost entirely on the decaying Empire which David Goyer has used as a throughline for the series continually returning us to the inbred clones of Trantor. While less involved, other than her narration, the show also brings back the overused crutch of Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) as well who awakes from cryosleep in time to interject herself into events as Goyer’s deus ex machina rather than allow the next generation of the Foundation to fight their own battles.

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Foundation – Barbarians at the Gate

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Foundation – Barbarians at the Gate
  • IMDb: link

Jumbling the second and third Foundation stories which take place decades apart, with content that was never part of the original stories from Isaac Asimov, and moving Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey) even farther from the politician the character was in the original stories to some weird agent of fate, Foundation gears up for a more action-centered storyline as Hardin captures the leader (Kubbra Sait) of the Anacreon invasion force not realizing everything they are doing is playing into the intruders’ plans. While this Hardin is an interesting character, the longer this series continues the less if feels like Foundation.

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Foundation – Preparing to Live / The Mathematician’s Ghost

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Foundation – Preparing to Live / The Mathematician’s Ghost
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link

What’s most surprising about the second and third episodes of Foundation is how much time is spent on Trantor with the Emperor clones long after Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) and his team have left the planet. In “Preparing to Live” half the episode is devoted to the investigation into the destruction of the Starbridge and the brutal punishment of both Anacreon and Thespis when neither will confess to the crime. The remaining part of the episode offers a look-in at the Foundation team traveling slowly through space which confirms a relationship between Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) and Raych (Alfred Enoch), makes an odd supposition that psychohistory isn’t complete, and ends with a bizarre series of events that isn’t even referenced in the next episode which pushes forward 35 years to Terminus.

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