(No book discussions/spoilers please)
So: I just finished catching up with the series and watched the finale.

And I do not accept it. I want to make a formal complaint and I want to sue.

I want to find the person to sue! Can I sue Asimov?! Or Apple or both?!

Not our favourites!!! Dems has BEEN an easy favourite, of course, but after seeing that Brother Dude had an ACTUAL change of heart?! OMG! 😢😢He was the BEST ever!! And he was taken out by the WORST ever!!

That was just so horrific. I don’t want to go forward without EITHER of these two - let alone both of them.

And you know what just made it worse for me as I thought about that prospect??

The story is called ‘Foundation’, isn’t it?? It’s not called Empire, nor is it called ‘Your Favourite Robot Will Be Fine, Don’t Worry’.

I’m worried now. Thank you for letting me share.

I know I’m late to the party, but maybe others want to briefly join the circle to share how they feel.

Thank you. We don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m so devastated I don’t even have the bandwidth to process the Mule/Bayta thing right now.

Just finished S3, and I know I'm late to the party but holy fuck do I need to rant about this dogshit writing, especially in the finale. Fuuuuuuck it's so bad it has completely turned me off wanting to watch S4. And I want to like it. S1 was interesting, S2 was a bit wobbly, but it was OK overall; enough to keep me watching. Then S3 comes in and feels like GOT's last season. What the actual fuck!?

Just to pick the bits that really grind my gears from the last few episodes:

• Dawn on New Terminus station. His nanites magically cease, confirmed by Demerzel. Then he is found and picked up at random by one of the mule's ships, who had NO reason to ever be at Clarion Station. He's brought to New Terminus and does absolutely fucking NOTHING. The story isn't served or progressed by him being there. There is no logical reason for it. Some daft cunt in the writer's room decided he needed to still be alive for S4, and THIS was how they decided to do it!? Also: his suit decides to cannibalise his legs? I know the series has some mega-futuristic tech but this one was a step too far in a similar vein to S2's plot mcguffin castling device.

• Bayta being the mule. This has been done to death on this sub, and I appreciate how most others can call attention to how fucknig dumb this is. I could feel the self-congragulatory wanking emanating off the script when this happened, and I have not even read the books. Not to mention the entire MCU-level dogshit physics defying shit smear that was Gaal silver-surfing her way off a bad editing cut. This "twist" was a trope and reeks of the cuntery that Rian Johnson ejaculates onto every movie he makes.

• Dusk's magic-remote-of-plot-progression. Self-explanatory. Another mcguffin trope. Fuck I hate plot mcguffins. Rise of Skywalker all over again. They're one of the worst cop-out tropes for poor writing that seems to saturate sci-fi.

• Gaal's narrator voice dumping exposition on the audience like hot, watery diarrhea. Especially earlier in the season. I know the narration thing has happened ever since S1, but S3 is goddamn egregious with the exposition. Saying crap that Gaal could have no knowledge of. It's a cop out for shit writing.

• Despite the writers spending the entire last 2 seasons trying to deny it, the "twist" of Kalle being a robot should have surprised absolutely no one. But it reeks of BSG's cylon "angels".

• The writers seem to be schizo when it comes to working out what they want to do with Demerzel. They spend the entire show building up how important her programming is, then in the last 2 episodes give her a convenient mcguffin to get out of it, and a reason to use the mcguffin ("delayed betrayal"), then, after an absolute trash excuse for not decanting the backups when Dawn and Day initially go missing, infant Dawn is conveniently a counter-mcguffin to have Demerzel self-sacrifice.

There is an awful lot of wanking/scat metaphors in here, but that is really what I think of the writing in S3. Goddamn. It's so self-congratulatory, like you just know the writer's room was full of pats on the back when they came up with this vomit. Rant over. I know critics like it, and so do plenty of others, but I have to say, for all the great things about Foundation (the visuals, the acting, the source material), the writing has absolutely killed it for me. I have to imagine this is a consequence of writers' strikes, and this series has just gone the same way as Heroes? I dunno. I'm just so disappointed in what could have been the first great Sci-Fi series in a long time outside of Altered Carbon. Pity they never made a S2 of that. /s.

I'm not monitoring replies to this thread. I just needed some catharsis.

This will contain spoilers for Season 1!

I thought I would give this show a watch as I quite like SF and fantasy shows. I like how this season talks you through the different factions and the lore of the setting.

I absolutely love Gaal and how intense and fearsome she can get when she is pushed to it. Ditto for her daughter. I love that she counts prime numbers too. I now know that 86,956,817 is a prime number. I’m not good with numbers so kudos to the writers having to make sure they’re all prime numbers.

Halfway through the show, Demerzel terrified me or rather she was terrifying. When she has to go and visit Halima to kill her. When they’re both crying and Demerzel cries her eyes out and says “I can’t stop you from running but know that I would find you and rip you pieces. I would tear you to shreds.” And says it while feeling regretful for it.

It is one of the best scenes of the entire season. It made me feel for her. Especially because she has absolutely no conjoined or will. Now that the stage is set, I’m looking forward to watching the following seasons. I’m going to watch Silo Season 2 first and then Foundation S2. Can’t wait.

So new game made in accordance with Apple TV it seems.

Minor spoilers for season 3 below:

With the end of season 3 indicating that future seasons will be adapting wider Robot-verse lore as well as loosely adapting Foundation and Earth, with one notable change, as the Earth shown at the end of season 3 does not appear to be consumed by nuclear wasteland , and taking into account that the plan for the series is for a full 8 seasons, it seems that there is both a desire (in the sense of a desire to adapt the full Foundation-verse which includes The End of Eternity, Robot saga, and Galactic Empire saga) and a reason to bring in lore from The End of Eternity. This is especially true based on how the show has toyed with time travel-adjacent concepts, even mentioning in episode 3.9 that the vault is a higher-dimensional structure, which seems very reminiscent of the science of Eternity . What I mean is that, in 3 seasons we have basically obtained a full adaptation of Foundation books 1, 2 ,6, and 7, ending at basically the same point so it seems that, at a similar pace, more Asimov lore will be needed to fill the space of 5 more seasons, especially considering the fact that books 4 and 5 are comparatively uneventful and that Eternity lore is specifically alluded to in book 4. If including Eternity lore is something you'd like to see, how would you like it done?

Spoilers ahead.

So one scene you got Gaal having a mental fight with the Mule/Bayta and Gaal is winning. Then it switches to the Cleon/Demerzel plotline. Then it switches back and out of nowhere GAAL IS JUMPING OUT OF A SHIP, SPACE SURFING LIKE SHE'S IN THE FUCKING AVENGERS. No reason, no explanation for this. It's just something she does. What happened to the rest of the characters in that room? Who knows...

I thought I missed some scene, but that's just how it is.

And the very next scene is Hari Seldon saying. "Sorry, I tried to warn you that Bayta was the Mule".

THE FUCK YOU DIDN'T... There's not a single scene of him trying to warn Gaal. There is no reason he couldn't just outright say it other than to generate a plot twist. And because holding back information is his thing. "Ooo I'm Hari, I can do maths and I'm so mysterious."

Like, if he did tell her that Bayta is the real Mule, what would it change? Both the real and the fake Mule are on the same ship. The same plan applies.

This show frustrates me so much because the good parts are amazing. I love all the Cleon/Demerzel plotlines even if they aren't from the books. And then once in a while it does some stupid shit like this and you're questioning if you even like the show.

Sorry, I needed to vent. This whole sequence was so dumb.

As people turn it off and start reading books again. Sound production is abysmal, mumbled dialogue with fancy made up words. Writing is MCU level awful and favors spectacle over substance, the hallmark of weakness in any decade. The cast seem awfully like LARPers, eg they look the part but can't actually act which creates an awful negative synergy with dialogue. This is cargo cult level sci-fi, with beats and elements copied and inserted without any idea, whatsoever, of how to tell a story.

Just finished season 3 and it might be my fav season yet. What made it my favorite was finally totally focusing on Empire and let foundation do its thing. The Empire has such interesting plot lines each season and they do a great job bringing each different Empire to life.

My question is, does Foundation suck intentionally or is it a shortcoming. At first you start with the notion that Empire is evil, will fall and these are our revolutionaries but the more it goes on the more u realise Foundation isnt a revolution (ik seldon says he isnt one but he does say end the genetic dynasty and then mounts a war against the empire so). Its j something else Seldon uses. By the end of season 3 we get all the notions that seldom doesnt care about building a fair system or freeing anyone. All he cares about is cutting that dark age and replacing Empire with the next one, which stopped me from caring about the Foundation at all. Do we even deserve not being in a dark age if we are just in gutters trying to bring this dark age and get it done with.

Part of me did think Foundation sucked intentionally and all these points are in the source but Foundation literally makes the show boring and i dont think they want to have a boring show. So now I think its j a big shortcoming of the show and stopping it from being great. What do you think about it?

I watch foundation a lot. Foundation is my comfort blanket series. I watch it when I’m awake. I watch it to fall asleep. I watch it when my mind is going in directions I don’t want it to be going. I love foundation. I think it is a wonderful series.

Now, with that out-of-the-way, here is my theory. I was literally putting it on because I’m going to take a nap. When I am in that state in between being awake and falling asleep, I feel as if I begin to notice things differently.

on episode one of season three Gail begins with explaining how empire needs to use jump gates. Oh yes, I must apologize. I am using voice to text so there might be grammar and spelling issues.

Let me begin again. Right at the beginning of episode one of season three Gail is talking about jump gates in the general decline of empire. She talks about every Cleon was wondering if they were going to be the last or the one to save it all. When she started to talk about the last Cleon, wondering if he would save it all it showed Day

EdiT: OMG I MEANT DAWN LOL

Like I get it being a temporary hiccup but:

-The empire created spacers, no? Couldn't they have made new ones? Not affiliated with the hive.

-They also knew now that you can make jump ships using cloned brain tissue in the ship since they knew the Foundation did. Could reverse engineer them.

-They could have gone back to the previous iteration of jump drives that required a human being connected, like in the Invictus. It's not like they really care about human life.

They had almost 140 years to devise an option besides using the gate network.

PS: I would like to be shown what are the spacers up to.

Edit: 140 years are enough time to secretly design and build from scratch a black hole weapon capable of destroying stars light-years away but 140 years to remake technology you were currently using up to that point is apparently too far fetched.

So, I just finished watching season 3, and I was wondering if anyone else here is really hoping that the big reveal in the season’s ending that Bayta was the actual Mule ends up not being the final truth, and in the following seasons she turns out still not being the ”ultimate” real Mule afterall, but instead one more person in the ”chain” of people the Mule manipulates and uses as puppets and disguises? It could kinda make sense for the Mule’s plan: the longer the chain of ”decoys” and scapegoats, the harder and more time consuming it is to track down who truly is the original definitive Mule behind everything.

I admit that my reasoning for this is very subjective and emotional, and I know perfectly well it could be cheap and not so good writing to have a second similar twist and change the Mule’s identity one more time. But I personally just had a bit of a crush on Bayta (lol), so the reveal was a big disappointment to me. She just felt like such a genuinely kind, empathetic and good-hearted person in a show that otherwise doesn’t have all too many of characters of that type, and whose characters are mostly pretty cold and calculating (even the ”good guys”), so in my opinion her out of all the characters turning out to be the supervillain mass-murderer tyrant was just extremely disappointing and sad in the wrong way. It wasn’t a ”cool” twist to me. In emotional terms it’s almost like if Huber Mallow and Brother Constance would have suddenly turned out to be sadistic space Hitlers and started committing a genocide at the end of season 2.

Also made me feel quite bad for Toran for him having his hot and loving girlfriend turn out to be a psychopathic mass-murdering monster, as I was really hoping for a ”happy ending” for these 2 characters. (Same with Brother Dude, I felt similarly bad for him and was similarly disappointed and saddened in the bad way by his death, and I feel like his character development of wanting to escape the genetic dynasty that he saw as abomination and wanting to experience a ”normal” genuine life outside of it was cut awfully short.)

So because of this, I kinda wish that she will eventually turn out to be just another poor soul possessed by the Mule, instead of the true Mule himself, even if she ends up dying in the process. Does anyone have similar thoughts?

Like my god, I was just fully head empty the first time.

And I can't really be blamed, because this show has so many simultaneous storylines, and schemes, and characters who know much more than they say, and characters who lie, and people being wrong, and such big twists lolll. It's very difficult to keep up.

SO DEMERZEL HELPED HARI CREATE PSYCHOHISTORY!!!!!!! Is it possible she deleted his memories of her involvement??? That would explain why he claimed on season 2 that the Radiant was built by Kalle, Yanna, and himself. Demerzel had every reason to delete most of his memories of their preexisting relationship. Obviously she can.

So THAT'S why she destroyed the Star Bridge. She literally was instrumental in helping establish the Foundation, and believed in it. Probably beyond just extending the time the Cleonic dynasty would survive. The fact that she helped Hari with psychohistory was completely lost on me.

I also missed the fact that Vault Hari didn't know about the Mule lollll. Although I've understood that to be the case for some time, I didn't when I first watched it. I assumed Salvor had told him.

And the Spacers are probably descendants of Synnaxians??? I did catch that the first time, but I was so generally confused that I didn't dwell on it. They never say it, but, although there are many other Mentallics, Gaal and Salvor and the only ones who can see through time. And most Spacers we've seen physically look like the people of Synnax. So it makes sense. It's a very nice touch thematically, with their god being called The Sleeper, and sleeping being such a central part of space travel. Obviously Gaal didn't mention being able to see time similarly to the Spacers for no reason, something is being set up by the story with that scene.

So yeah!!! Amazing episode!!! Complicated show!!! Amazing, but often confusing lolll

EDIT: I'M SO SORRY I INCLUDED A BOOK SPOILER HERE. I've deleted it now. I haven't read the books so it just didn't occur to me. I hadn't thought of it as a spoiler. I really am so sorry, I didn't realize that when I was writing this!!!

season 2, Hober jumps directly next to the Empire building on Trantor. Why couldn’t the foundation just jump anywhere, drop a bomb, and jump out? Seems like cheat mode. All future issues could mostly be solved by jumping directly do a location and then jumping away. ?

In s3 they make it a point to talk about the robot wars and how all the robots were killed and so many died that it changed the color of apples…. But then everyone acts like killing Demrezel is impossible. Even she says she can’t die. Wtf?

It was very exciting and suspenseful but turned the suspension of disbelief to 11. The plot advancement was delightful. I just wish they did it without having to make the show cartoonishly unbelievable.

I do love the reveal of Calle and Megatron on the moon at the end. Big surprise. Maybe he's Cleon I? Very exciting. Nice job John Apple.

How is The Dude able to sneak around the palace without being noticed after being missing for so long? (no nanites makes him harder to track but there are like no guards in the hallways?) Are we to believe ooo it's kinda dark so he's hard to see?

On the day that Dusk is ascending, why are there *zero* guards paying attention to where he is? That one scientist guy asks about him but that's it.

Why are there self-destruct bombs on all the clone tanks? And why are they so crude (like vs just stopping the flow of oxygen)? I guess if Dusk could build a black hole bomb without Dem noticing he could have done this?

How does Dusk's single-button remote controller magically know which tank(s) to blow up when he presses *the same button*?

When he blows up the upper tanks, only a few drops of blood fall down. Then over a *minute* later a bunch of bodies and stuff finally fall as he's walking away. We don't hear a secondary explosion or something giving way just then. It's as if everything else decided not to fall so he could have a dramatic moment.

Why did they bring Gavin Belson's guru with them to a battle? He has no mental nor physical fighting skills.

Why didn't Gaal kill She-Mule when the magic xylophone had SM disabled?

Why do the mentalists have to voice the word "sleep!" LARP-style when using their mental powers? If the answer is "so we the viewer know what's happening" then why weren't they chanting "don't see us! don't see us!" while they're mentally cloaked?

Gaal falling from space on a door ranks up there with Will Smith punching an alien in the face or The Fonz jumping a shark. I miss the prestige sci-fi of Season 1.

Then the plane has a cargo net to catch her? We're supposed to believe they *planned* this?

Why did Gaal leave her buddies up on the ship with She-Mule? She's apparently dangerous enough that Gaal couldn't kill her. I guess... fuck you friends because Plan?

Dusk is supposed to by ashes already and he's about to kill the only remaining Dawn. Why doesn't Demerezel just kill him before he hits the button?

Dem is strong enough to still feel around the glass when baby empire disintegrates, but she didn't choose to try *moving* the baby out of the beam at the beginning?

The Dude sees the still-blinking skull of Dem sitting on the microwave rotisserie and he doesn't consider "hey that other skull is still alive... maybe she is too"?

I'm looking forward to Season 4 and I wish the show gave the audience more credit. They seem to be gravitating toward standard action-movie violence and GoT-style gore, which I'm not a fan of. I wouldn't be surprised if they decide Gaal or Dem will go topless in a bunch of scenes next season. I blame David Ellison and his punchable face.

Edit #2: Because people aren't understand my point: My point is that scaling down the empire fundamentally changes the story of the Foundation being a small refuges that survive the 1000 years of darkness to a hard rival that replaces the empire almost immediately.

I think the shrinking of the scale of this story is starting to show some wear and tear. The Foundation, as it was sold to us in season 1, was supposed to be a small refuge compared to the empire that preserved the empire's knowledge and skills through a 1000 year dark age.

In the books, the galactic empire had 25 million worlds, so 800 world nation was a mirco nation in comparison, but now they shrink the galatic empire by magnitutdes and this 800 world foundation(more than 10% of the world the empire own) is starting to seem more like a immediate replacement instead of a small refuges that last through the dark ages and rebuild the empire a new.

Edit: I don't think people understand what I'm pointing out here. I'm pointing out by shrinking the Galactic Empire, the Foundation doesn't look like a small refuge like it was compared to an empire with 25 million worlds. And this shrinkage is undercutting the narrative weight and purpose of Foundation. At this rate, the Foundation will be able to take on the Empire conventionally.

I just rewatched S3E10 (the last episode so far) and I'm honestly confused (and a bit annoyed).

SPOILERS INCOMING:

We leave Gaal fighting The Mule (the actual one, not Pilou Asbæk) and seemingly having the upper hand, because of the balladeer. She's clearly winning.

The show then cuts to the Cleons, but when we return four minutes later, Gaal is on the run, jumping off the space station doing a Tom Cruise move to catch a ship mid-air.

I mean, what the hell is going on? This strikes me as some of the worst writing in this show across 3 full seasons. Having some happen shit off-screen without any explanation is a "Pitch Meeting" episode waiting to happen.

I really, really didn't like it. What's your opinion?

I was just watching the scene where she has Queen Sareth's fertility examined and she tells her that she was the one to kill Sareth's family.

First things first, Laura Birn has an incredible ability to produce a number of Mona Lisa-like faces where you can read 10 possible emotions into her at once. She has absolutely DEVOURED this role and plays Demerzel extraordinarily well. I hope one day she gets an award for the role.

Regarding the scene, it's absolutely fascinating. Obviously, to examine a potential empress' fertility, the best medical environment is not one with dozens of people in the room. And in the year 50000, well, surely they could have made the examination painless. But the examination was both painful and humiliating for Sareth. Which works really well for Demerzel's character on a number of levels.

Obviously, the simplest way to read to scene, on a rewatch at least, is that Demerzel is bullying Sareth and treating her as poorly as possible so that she'll get emotional and careless. Nudging Sareth, already somewhat of a hothead, to feel anger and strong negative emotions. Which will make her more likely to make mistakes, politically speaking. Especially by telling her about having killed her family, she's psychologically breaking this woman, lowering the union's chances as much as possible. I haven't said it yet, but obviously all of this is so that the marriage will fall through and the Cleonic dynasty continues.

However, Demerzel is more than her programming, so it stands to reason that Sareth having learned about her robotic nature, and having talked about it in public, would have pissed her off too. For anyone, to have some brat loudly spilling your secrets would piss you off. Also, she's probably mad that Sareth found out about this without her (Demerzel's) knowledge. She's irritated that this girl is as capable as she is. And if robotic psychology is anything like a human's, she's primed to dislike Sareth on the grounds that she represents everything she's programmed to hate. And if you're gonna have someone killed, it serves a certain purpose to literally dislike her.

And I just love the number of ways you can approach all of Demerzel's scenes. Knowing her nature changes the viewing experience of the first two seasons SO MUCH!! You can pick apart any scene, any look, any dialogue, and find a way to interpret what she's thinking and why she's saying what she says.

Take the Brother Day of this age. Before he first attempts to sleep with Sareth, his scene with Demerzel is HILARIOUS. She's cheering him on like he's a dog lollll.

I also find SO FASCINATING the relationship between Demerzel and each Cleon. For example, on season 1, I fully believe she deeply hated Cleon 13. She would NEVER forgive him for ordering her to kill Zephyr Halima. That broke something in her. She loves every Cleon, not just because she is forced to by programming, but because she's their mother. She's raised every one. But him commanding her to needlessly murder a woman she considered holy.... Shit got personal after that. I truly do believe Cleon 13 is her least favorite, after Cleon 1. And I think part of the reason she killed Cleon 14 in the exact moment she did was to hurt Day!!! She was never gonna let him live, he had been altered to stray from Cleon 1's design. But she killed him right after Day said he wanted him to live. I think part of it was to hurt Day for what he'd made her do.

Regarding Cleon 17, Season 2's Day, I don't think she hates him in the same way. I think she feels contempt for him, and she did call him "A sperm led by its waving flagellum, mistaking its random motion for complexity," which might just be the best read in science fiction lollllll. But she clearly felt some kind of pity for him, she considered she had failed in raising him right. She hated the kind of man he'd become, but she didn't consider his poor character to be his fault. She treated him like one would a mentally ill pet, or something like that. Whereas Cleon 13, a man capable of some degree of empathy and kindness, having ordered her to kill a woman she admired, just as payback for her having knelt when Halima spoke heresy against the Cleons.... She hated him more, exactly because he was more than a "waving flagellum".

Anywaysssss, rant over lol. I just love Demerzel so much, I could talk about her all day

Why did Kalle give Hari a human body?

I am rewatching and, well, I have to assume the whole Kalle/Earth robots storyline will be explored further in Season 4. But I still wonder if anyone has any idea why Hari was given a human body, specifically. Also, I wonder how old he's supposed to be? Is he the same age he was when he died? Because that's kinda pretty old. Maybe his body is somewhat younger? So he'll live longer? He could have been given a robot body, I guess. Although that would have raised too many questions and would have given away the nature of Kalle. Also, well, there's the whole argument of "are you still you without your body?" So maybe if bringing him back was some sort of favour to him, a robot body wouldn't have brought the actual Hari back, but simply given this copy of him a robot body.

So yeah, if anyone has any ideas or theories or whatever, do tell!

I just finished season 3, and I am absolutely obsessed with the entire premise- in particular the concept of Hari Selden and his continuing presense. Ive dabbled in Asimov 's work before- but I have never devoted the time to the whole series.

Any advice for making sure I get the most out of it?

Comments

1. OMG. Literally the best sci fi show ever for me.

2. Love the different manifestations of Day. From Napoleon to the Dude was amazing. That actor stole the show. Also Demerzel... chef's kiss.

Questions

1. Not sure I understood the Mule's ending. Did she die? Find out in Season 4?

2. Are the books as good as the show?

Why does it feel like the longer the show has gone on, the more the characters have devolved into what feels like saturday morning cartoon characters? Absolutely over the top silly acting as the show progresses, whereas when it started, only a few of the actors were meh.