BATTLE ROYALE

A WAR BETWEEN EMPIRE AND TERMINUS DRAWS CLOSER IN THE SECOND SEASON OF APPLE TV+’S ASIMOV ADAPTATION FOUNDATION

- TARA BENNETT

IF YOU LIKE YOUR SCIENCE FICTION TV to feature dense world-building, heady themes and massive scale, then Foundation, the Apple TV+ adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s book series of the same name, surely ticked every box. Developed and showrun by David Goyer, Foundation was the veteran sci-fi screenwriter’s attempt to translate Asimov’s “unfilmable” world into the one medium where it felt possible to undertake it: television.

Season one did a lot of work in terms of setting up the core details about a 1,000-year battle of wills to prevent the imminent collapse of the Empire. Two key characters are Hari Seldon (Jared Harris), the creator of the branch of mathematic study called psychohistory, and his brilliant new protégé Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell).

The pair can predict the Empire’s fall because of four centuries of poor rule by an uninterrupted cycle of regenerating genetic clones made from Emperor Cleon I, known as Brother Dawn (Cooper Carter), Brother Day (Lee Pace) and Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann).

Told in a non-linear format, with complex storylines and brand new material (like the Clones) for the series, season one was well-received by both Asimov fans and general sci-fi fans, even if it wasn’t a literal translation of the books. Season two, Goyer tells SFX, will continue to be a mixture of the original texts and their own creations.