TL;DR – This opening episode whispers where they are going this season while opening with a Hari Seldon, that might be a little mad.

Disclosure – I paid for the Apple TV+ service that viewed this episode.

Foundation Review –

I had always wondered how someone would adapt Foundation. Some of the older works of Science Fiction are foundational to the genre but don’t align narratively with how we create stories today. The First Season was full of interesting turns and explorations while expanding on Asimov’s world. It was not without its flaws, but it was always fascinating. My question is, where can it go from there?    

So to set the scene, at the end of last season, we had The First Crisis appear on the planet of Foundation set up by the leaders of psychohistory, Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) and Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell), to help the galaxy recover from the inevitable collapse of the 12,000-year old Galactic Empire. The first crisis was solved by uniting two former enemies and hiding themselves in the outer rim, building a base for recovery. The Cleon Dynasty is floundering after revelations about their DNA ancestry and on the small water planet of Synnax, a mother and daughter reunite. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.  

If I could describe this episode in a food term, it would be an amuse-bouche, not getting very deep with the story but tantalising you with the directions the show will go. We get to see the slow unworking of the Galactic Empire in real time as Brother Day (Lee Pace), Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann), and Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton) start to diverge on where they see the future. On Terminus, the vault has become active again, hinting at a new Crisis. On Synnax, a mother and daughter work through the oddness of their new connections. All the while, Hari is locked away somewhere, slowly losing his mind while he crashes through the void between 3D and 4D space.  

Of the three stories, the one that intrigued me the most was the continued collapse of the Empire and the bloodline gone amiss. The Brothers Day, Dawn, and Dusk are mostly creations of the adaption, but they are a fascinating addition. The first is because they are a power system I have never seen before, so it is fascinating to see it work through its movements. What happens when you suspect you of trying to murder you? The second is that it is an ingenious way of adding continuity to a book series that lacks that element, well, at least for the first few books.

There will probably be a lot said about our opening re-introduction of Brother Day and Demerzel (Laura Birn), and the understanding that she bedded the first emperor is perhaps not the good sign that Brother Day sees it as. The following fight, as Brother Day fights off a wave of assassins stark naked, was also a good case study in creative choreography and shot framing. The notion that Brother Day will take a wife and produce an heir rather than continue with a clone is also just the right accelerant to throw on the bonfire that is the coming calamity.

I was a bit cooler on the other sections of the episode because while the continuity we get from the Brothers is an interesting twist, making sure that Gaal and Salvor (Leah Harvey) are still alive in the second season felt slightly more contrived. On the one hand, I like that they are starting to plant the notion of the rouge individual messing with psychohistory because it can only work on mass populations. But it always felt like something was missing from that storyline which might be the missing piece added in the final moments. Having Gall, Salvor, and Hari all play off each other as doom approaches could be a good foundation for the narrative, but we will have to wait for next week to see.

In the end, do we recommend Foundation: In Seldon’s Shadow? Yes, we would. I should say that if you didn’t connect with the first season, I am not sure that this is the episode that will change your mind. But the performances were electric, and I am intrigued to see where we go from here.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Foundation yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Foundation
Directed by – Alex Graves
Written by – David S. Goyer & Jane Espenson
Created by – David S. Goyer & Josh Friedman
Based On – Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Production/Distribution Companies – Skydance TV & Apple+
Starring – Jared Harris, Lee Pace, Lou Llobell, Leah Harvey, Laura Birn, Cassian Bilton & Terrence Mann with Nimrat Kaur, Holt McCallany, Ella-Rae Smith, Sandra Yi Sencindiver, Olive Chris, Rowena King and Elsie Bennett, Sean Rigby, Isaac Highams, Eva Bradley-Williams, Emily Stott, Wade Briggs, Anthony Barclay, Haqi Ali, Jim High, James Beaumont & Kubbra Sait