Foundation: Season 3

Apple TV+ has a range of original series that no other streaming service can match. It's not that the productions this platform offers are bigger or more popular than others - few would be able to rival Netflix's Stranger Things or Prime Video's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power - but that they are typically consistently much higher quality projects, shows that you come away from both impressed and entertained. Out of an armada that spans Severance, Ted Lasso, Slow Horses, Silo, The Morning Show, and countless others, the crown jewel in Apple's collection is without a doubt the immensely lavish, complex, generational sci-fi series Foundation.

For those unfamiliar with what Foundation is, originally it is a massive list of novels from author Isaac Asimov, a collection of stories that are perhaps only truly rivalled by Dune. It depicts humanity's struggle to co-exist and survive in a galaxy full of threats and changing dynamics, a massively complex timeline that a mathematician managed to boil down and predict. Hari Seldon was this man, a genius who determined that for everlasting peace, humanity must struggle through a series of significant moments, moments that are hundreds of years apart, leading to a generational war between Seldon's heretical saviors that go by Foundation and the tyrannical Empire that currently holds control of the galaxy.

With such a broad and wide spanning concept, you might be concerned that Foundation simply does not have the strength to hold up its weight, and at times that does feel the case. When you're telling a story that spans centuries (and eventually millenia), it can become a challenge to maintain balanced character development, something this show attempts to get around by basically resetting the cast between seasons. Sure, there are a handful of recurring actors whose recurrence is explained in a meaningful way, but each time a new season drops, you have to move on from the former gang and connect with a new group, and that means that every season character development basically resets. Now this is important to note because Foundation has a Game of Thrones-level of politicised drama and interconnecting storylines, a complex web of narrative threads that can be difficult to keep tabs on at the best of times, nevermind when also adding tons of fresh characters to the equation every 10 episodes. Essentially, the point I'm trying to make is that while Foundation works well as isolated seasons of television, the interconnectedness between the different key periods of time become less and less impactful and relevant as the seasons roll on, ultimately meaning that the true core of this show - the fight against complete destruction - is shrouded by petty rivalries and snide jabs in palace corridors.

So yes, the narrative and dialogue structure of Foundation can be a bit hit or miss at times, but creators Josh Friedman and David S. Goyer do an excellent job at creating impactful and entertaining characters every season. It's particularly impressive as there are only really two characters that are the same in Season 3 as they were in Season 1, with everyone else different in one way or another, whether it be clones or digitised holograms. So while we know what to expect from Lou Llobell's Gaal Dornick and Laura Birn's increasingly complex and scene-stealing Demerzel, the rest of the cast have to change how they operate every 10 episodes. A great example of this in Season 3 is Lee Pace, who went from being the tyrant of all tyrants as Brother Day in Season 2, to being a The Dude-like version of Day in this season, presenting a fresh taste of what to expect from even some of the very most core characters.

Regardless of who you look at from a cast perspective, be it other returning stars like Jared Harris as Seldon, Cassian Bilton as Brother Dawn, or Terrence Mann as Brother Dusk, or new additions like Pilou Asbaek's instantly impressionable and frightening villain The Mule, the performances are top of the range and worth celebrating.

When you match this up with a premium degree of set and costume design, filming techniques and use of lighting, and epic special and physical effects that puts most other productions to shame (after all, it is one of the most expensive shows on television right now), Foundation is the epitome of sci-fi, a true marvel that you won't want to take your eyes off even when you know there are cracks in its armour.

And this is where I still stand with Foundation. On one hand, there are few shows that can rival the production quality and the sheer scope this targets and largely achieves. But on the other hand, as the episodes roll on, I can't help but feel as though the very nature of this show is losing its most core premise, the fact that every season seems to forget its central purpose of solving these few but key great crises in favour of exploring and tackling more trivial matters in the grand scheme of things. It's great television, no doubt about it, and some of the best sci-fi you can find today considering the unevenness of similar universes like Star Wars and Star Trek, but as was the case in Game of Thrones where it felt like White Walkers and the Great Winter were more of an afterthought at times, Foundation seems to be facing a similar challenge now that its third season is in the books.