Foundation S1E2 "Preparing to Live"
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I enjoyed episode 1. I kinda disliked this one. It's been a while since I read all the books. So I'm pretty uncertain if they're following things closely or not. But the overall look and style I dislike a lot. So, well, not like I'm gonna stop watching, but at the moment feel pretty disappointed.
I did not like the second episode. The Foundation series was famous for being hard science fiction, or as it might be called today, rational fiction. I can understand making a few changes to that in order to try to appeal to a wider audience, but the second episode added so many irrational elements that instead of appealing to a wider audience, they seem to be abandoning a rational audience in favor of an irrational one.
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I didn't dislike E2, but wasn't nearly as enamored with it as E1. Still amazing visuals though, the SFX are killer.
I could do without the Gaal/Raych romance angle. And seeing how the episode ended, with Gaal being shot out into space in an embryonic capsule (?), the romance seemed unneeded. Maybe they meet up years later, and it's instant sparks again. Who knows, but I don't care.
I give E1 nine stars, E2 seven stars.
Question for all: Those of us who have read the books have some very different observations & questions. I'm not a fan of using lots of spoiler tags in an ongoing thread. Would it be worth it to have one additional thread (one thread, not one per episode) where book readers could make posts that would not be kosher in episode threads? I seem to vaguely recall something similar in the early days of Game of Thrones episodes.
I could do without the Gaal/Raych romance angle. And seeing how the episode ended, with Gaal being shot out into space in an embryonic capsule (?), the romance seemed unneeded. Maybe they meet up years later, and it's instant sparks again. Who knows, but I don't care.
I give E1 nine stars, E2 seven stars.
Question for all: Those of us who have read the books have some very different observations & questions. I'm not a fan of using lots of spoiler tags in an ongoing thread. Would it be worth it to have one additional thread (one thread, not one per episode) where book readers could make posts that would not be kosher in episode threads? I seem to vaguely recall something similar in the early days of Game of Thrones episodes.
I kept wondering what Asimov's comments would be. That entertainment sustained me. The best part of the episode was that my wife, whom I had persuaded to watch this thing, fell asleep early on and that saved me considerable embarrassment.
Reminded me a lot of Star Trek Discovery season one, which really pissed me off because after all this time I was finally beginning to erase that from my mind.
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I've got to wonder why they're making so many changes to the basic story. This 2nd episode was ok, but not what I expected. The fact that no one seems to know what the vault is is strange as it was well known that Seldon would give messages from there.
Raych killing his father is also out of left field. I'm sticking with it because I want to see where it's going, but I'm not super happy with the direction right now.
Raych killing his father is also out of left field. I'm sticking with it because I want to see where it's going, but I'm not super happy with the direction right now.
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I have no problems with changes as long as it's a good show. The books are hard to turn into shows because they span hundreds of years and every "chapter" is basically a completely different set of characters... it's hard to do that on TV because they want the audience to connect with the characters.
I have some ideas about what is going on here:
I think Hari thought that the Empire would kill him and he'd be a martyr, and that's why he said he didn't think he'd be on the ship. I think that his math is not working anymore for the best possible case for the Foundation: that's why we see him frustrated when reviewing his data. He decided he needed to become a martyr so he enlisted Raych to kill him. Raych was going to escape in the cryogenic pod.
But, Gaal interrupted. Raych thought she might be blamed or have her authority challenged by this and sent her in the pod instead (presumably sacrificing himself; I guess we'll see next week). I have two different thoughts about why Gaal ran to Hari: the first is that maybe she saw the same problem in the math and solution that Hari did and suddenly understood what would happen based on Raych's moodiness.
The second is related to my other theory, from the books:
I have some ideas about what is going on here:
I think Hari thought that the Empire would kill him and he'd be a martyr, and that's why he said he didn't think he'd be on the ship. I think that his math is not working anymore for the best possible case for the Foundation: that's why we see him frustrated when reviewing his data. He decided he needed to become a martyr so he enlisted Raych to kill him. Raych was going to escape in the cryogenic pod.
But, Gaal interrupted. Raych thought she might be blamed or have her authority challenged by this and sent her in the pod instead (presumably sacrificing himself; I guess we'll see next week). I have two different thoughts about why Gaal ran to Hari: the first is that maybe she saw the same problem in the math and solution that Hari did and suddenly understood what would happen based on Raych's moodiness.
The second is related to my other theory, from the books:
Raych was going to the Second Foundation after he killed Hari and escaped. Now, presumably Gaal will do that. Maybe Gaal has some kind of mental powers that let her sense what was happening with Raych and Hari, which would make her a perfect fit for Second Foundation.
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I'm not sure what we should assume about whether viewers have read the book so I'm spoilering:
It's only been 35 years. We're just introducing Hardin and she is not come into any sort of power yet as far as we can tell. Maybe there have been no messages yet from Hari (I think in the books the first one doesn't show up until 50 yrs) and the townspeople have kind of forgotten about it.
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I was wondering about this after episode 1. I haven't read the books, but in the very first episode, they tell us straight up it's going to take the Empire a couple hundred of years to fall. And then if things are done right with the Foundation, just 1000 years to recover from the dark ages that will follow. I don't quite see how you make that a TV show unless the characters are essentially immortal.
Does the book series have an end? Do we know if Apple intends for this to be a limited series? Just 10 epiosodes? Or maybe two seasons of 10 episodes to tell the full strory? or is this the sort of story they can drag out season after season?
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Well, the series doesn't have an end in that humanity is not destroyed and continues on 
. There is a sort-of ending regarding Seldon's plan. But, not really. The final book in the series covers events about 500 years after the current events. Then, Asimov wrote 2 prequels dealing with the development of psychohistory.
. There is a sort-of ending regarding Seldon's plan. But, not really. The final book in the series covers events about 500 years after the current events. Then, Asimov wrote 2 prequels dealing with the development of psychohistory.
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One thing they've added is the cloned emperors. Maybe that means Lee Pace will be the only ongoing character..? (And the robot, perhaps...)
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And where IS R. Daneel Olivaw during all of this? Do we meet him later or is he not going to be included at all?
The show runner has hinted that his plan was to have 8 seasons, around 80 hours total.
There may already be an answer to this if you've read the books.
Anyone else interested in a Foundation TV Show vs Books thread to discuss this sort of thing without spoilers all over the place?
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Of course I've read the books. Multiple times. Otherwise how would I know that name? (and the whole Foundation and Robots bit is not my favorite part).
I confess, though, I haven't read them in years so I don't pretend my memory isn't fuzzy. I decided not to re-read them before the show so I wouldn't be nitpicking it.
I think that, much like Game of Thrones, there is probably good value in your idea of a "books vs show" thread.
Book Spoiler:
In the books, Eto Demerzel *is* R Daneel Olivaw. I strongly suspect that's the case here. Although in the books, by this point chronologically, he had left and moved to Earth's moon
I'll go start a thread, however, since there's a lot to potentially discuss.
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Hmmm... There are three Empires.. Dawn, Day, Dusk
My assumption here is that there isn't a "Night" because "Night" is what would happen when Brother Dusk dies. Brother Day becomes Brother Dusk, Brother Dawn becomes Brother Day, and a new clone is made to make a new Brother Dawn.
I think Brother Day will certainly be around a while.. But I also think Brother Dawn will be too and he may see things differently than Brother Day. It really seemed like they were setting up something there with Brother Dawn and his questioning of why the answer always seems to be "hang people"
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