Foundation: Season Two
It is one hundred and seventy-three years since Hari Seldon was sent into exile by Emperor Cleon XII who saw the predictions of the new science of psychohistory as a threat to Empire; Seldon for his part saw the future as already written if not yet enacted, the fall of the Empire inevitable and already underway, the only hope for abbreviating the subsequent dark age the forming of a distant Foundation dedicated to the preservation of knowledge.
Time has passed, and it is now Cleon XVII who sits as Brother Day, flanked on either side by his predecessor and successor Brother Dusk and Brother Dawn, all of them clones of the original Cleon, passing from the innocence and optimism of youth to the wisdom of age only through an adulthood as the proud face of Empire, a beautiful and sculpted monster, arrogant, manipulative, perceiving threats in every shadow and none greater than the Foundation, flourishing while Empire is withdrawing from the outer systems and leaving them in squabbling chaos.
Originally published as four short stories between 1942 and 1944, The Encyclopedists, The Mayors, The Traders and The Merchant Princes, joined by prelude The Psychohistorians when collected as a novel in 1951, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation formed the inspiration for the first season of the ambitious Apple TV+ show developed by David S Goyer and Josh Friedman, establishing the schism between Seldon and Cleon and the migration of the settlers from the capital planet Trantor to the distant world of Terminus.
The Foundation having survived the first crisis predicted by mathematician Seldon (The Expanse’s Jared Harris), the stage is set for the second season inspired by Asimov’s second novel in the sequence, Foundation and Empire, comprising two novellas, The General and The Mule, establishing the characters of General Bel Riose and the Warlord of Kalgan with The Exorcist’s Ben Daniels and The Hobbit’s Mikael Persbrandt joining the cast this year as two men who carry their diametrically opposed causes with absolute conviction and ruthlessness.
Opening with In Seldon’s Shadow, written by David S Goyer and Jane Espenson and directed by Alex Graves who also served in the same capacity on three consecutive episodes of the first year, as is the nature of the complex narrative spanning multiple worlds where journeys can take days or years depending on the mode of conveyance, in some arenas there has been great change, though not necessarily progress, while on the water world Synnax the action resumes exactly where it left off.
Seldon’s protégée Gaal Dornick (Voyager’s Lou Llobell) having slept her way to the future and found Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey) waiting for her, a daughter she didn’t know existed who is now older than her, she carries with her the Prime Radiant, Seldon’s mechanism for displaying future history, which shows that not only is the second crisis coming in the form of an inevitable war with Empire but that they are already deviating from the optimal course of events, tumbling towards endless crises and eternal chaos.
A vision of the future whose setting rivals that of Dune in the expansive sets, glorious costumes and the dazzling ships which power themselves between the stars on exotic drives, Foundation challenges and delights the mind and the eye, unafraid to be abstract and oblique and playing a long game, it’s characters acting in the present but looking to the future, the followers of Seldon guided by his calculations yet unsure of the repercussions of their immediate actions while others jealously guard the present, fighting anything which threatens the stability of their holdings.
Madman or genius, possibly both, the psychohistory of the great intellectual Seldon based upon the collective understanding of vast populations over great eons of time, that concept is reflected in the opening titles of the show, slightly modified for the second season, displaying the interactions of particulate matter, miniscule points individually insignificant which accrete to take form, towering statues and the iterations of the Cleon dynasty, the vessels which carry his flag and the true face of his majordomo as revealed in the finale of the first season.
The series taking the premise and the broad outlines of many of the main characters from the works of Asimov, there are many differences from the source material which in many ways has not aged well in the intervening decades, the key presence of Eto Demerzel (Laura Birn) in the court of Empire among them though one which pays homage to Asimov’s other enduring series which began in 1950 with the collection I, Robot.
The last of her kind, all others purged in the ancient Robot Wars, Demerzel is not bound by the laws of robotics designed to protect their human masters, her unswerving loyalty to Empire enabling her to kill if required, fortunate for Cleon (Guardians of the Galaxy’s Lee Pace) when she intervenes in an attempt on his life by blind assassins, his growing paranoia exacerbated by the dent in his perceived invulnerability and concerns over his legacy and the loyalty of his siblings which have led him to consider abandoning cloning in favour of a marriage which will bring other advantages.
His favoured bride Queen Sareth of Cloud Dominion (Ella-rae Smith), arriving in a ship of light above the artificial rings of Trantor, an orphan hailing from beyond Empire she does not display the deference to which Cleon is accustomed, a slight which in other circumstances might see an individual exiled, and that it is tolerated indicates how deeply Cleon needs an alliance, but it is apparent that like her suitor Sareth has an agenda and she promises to be a fascinating addition to an ensemble which already features diverse and dynamic women, another departure from Asimov’s writing which tended to overlook women.
A cosmos of shapes and shadows which conceal their true form, the concept which the show is built upon and returns to is the tesseract, a collapsed hypercube exemplified by the form of the Prime Radiant, an object which appears understandable despite its complexity but which is only a representation of multi-dimensional depths, Foundation confirming that it is the most important high-concept science fiction show currently in production as well as the most beautiful, taking to the stars and diving to the depths as it paints across the canvas of the cosmos in strokes broad, colourful and glittering but defined by the details only apparent on careful examination.
Foundation season two premieres globally with the first episode on Friday, July 14th, followed by new episodes weekly every Friday exclusively on Apple TV+
