Tag Archives: Laura Birn

Foundation: The Leap and Season 1 – TV Review

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TL;DR – The worlds come crashing down as damage comes to all.   

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Foundation: The Leap. Image Credit: Apple TV+.

Foundation Review –

When I first sat down to watch The Emperor’s Peace, I was not sure what I would get. I had read the novels that jump across time and space, making adaptation a challenging prospect. Indeed, it is not surprising that it has taken this long for someone to give a solid crack at it. As the season progressed, it became clear that the first episode might be the high-water mark for the show, but thankfully it was still always interesting.

So to set the scene, all the future plotlines had led to this point. On Trantor, the manipulations have come to a head. Still, thankfully, for the genetic dynasty, Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann) was able to track Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton), stopping the plan of Azura (Amy Tyger) and her rebels in their tracts. But the question remains, what to do about Brother Dawn, who a pure Cleon is no longer, only Brother Day (Lee Pace) can decide. On Terminus, Anacreons and Thespeians have each other at a gun barrel with the colonists square in the centre. It is a recipe for slaughter, right up until Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) appears out of the Vault surprising all. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode and the season as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Foundation: The Missing Piece – TV Review

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TL;DR – All the pieces move into place, and we see where the imminent peril is arriving from.  

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Foundation: The Missing Piece. Image Credit: Apple TV+.

Foundation Review –

We have reached the pointy end of the season, with only two more episodes left today, which means that many of the season’s plotlines are crashing towards their conclusions. This week we give Trantor a rest as we see the rest of the galaxy slowly fall apart.

So to set the scene, we open in on Anacreon as a Young Phara (Naisha Kripalani Dhankani) and her brother Ilex (David Jacob Sumod) play in the forest. But as they walk home, a bunch of lights appear in the sky above and rain fire down on the planet below, immolating Ilex in front of Phara. In the present time, Phara (Kubba Sait) has one drive to take over the ship and burn Trantor to the ground. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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Foundation: Death and the Maiden – TV Review

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TL;DR – The show is starting to find its place.  

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Foundation: Death and the Maiden. Image Credit: Apple TV+.

Foundation Review –

After Foundation’s bombastic explosion onto the scene in its first episode, The Emperor’s Peace, I had become concerned with where the show was heading. It felt like it was grasping around in the dark, possibly crushed under the weight of adapting the source material with all its quirks, while trying to bring it into the 21st century. While it still feels like it is struggling to find its place, we have now seen the bedrock it is building upon, and I am intrigued.

So to set the scene, the Anacreon’s attack on Terminus has caught everyone, including the Empire, with their pants down. Well, everyone but Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey) who spotted Phara’s (Kubbra Sait) play but not before she could enact it. Meanwhile, back on Trantor, Brother Day’s (Lee Pace) frustration with the state of things boiled over, and he breaks with thousands of years of tradition and boots Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann) off a trip to the centre of the Luminism religion in the Moon Maiden in the Surah System. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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Foundation: The Mathematician’s Ghost – TV Review

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TL;DR – We start to see the main story unfurl, but some of the more frustrating elements are still there.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

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

Foundation: The Mathematician’s Ghost. Image Credit: Apple TV+.

Foundation Review –

‘Non-linear storytelling’ is a method of creating a narrative that does not follow the usual A->B->C->D pattern but can jump all over the place C->D->B->A. Sometimes this comes in the form of a narrative hook where they show something shocking and jump back in a week to show how they got there. Sometimes it can be used to keep an audience off-balance. Sometimes it can be a complete surprise, like in Westworld. But if you are going to employ a non-linear story, you need to make sure it improves your narrative and that you are not losing your audience in the process.

So to set the scene, at the end of Preparing to Live, we had a moment of horror as Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) is apparently murdered at the hands of his own son Raych (Alfred Enoch) while Gaal (Lou Llobell) was jettisoned out of an escape pod. This episode we open 400-years earlier when Cleon the First (Terrence Mann) is looking over the construction of the Starbridge and preparing to create the legacy of his clones. We then jump 19 years after the bombing in The Emperor’s Peace, as Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann) has started his final day before becoming Brother Darkness. While 36 years after the bombing, the colonists have landed on Terminus and have been spending their time founding a colony and starting the task of softening the fall of the galactic empire.   

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Foundation: Preparing to Live – TV Review

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TL;DR – While still showing promise, the follow-up does not hit as hard as the first.   

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Foundation: Preparing to Live. Image Credit Apple TV+.

Foundation Review –

Adapting a work from one medium to another is a complex process. Indeed, the media landscape is lifted with the failed attempts and aborted projects. This danger is amplified further when you adapt a work that is older and does not play within modern narrative frameworks. Today we continue to explore a show that is charging through this dangerous terrain by adapting a pillar of Science Fiction’s canon.

So to set the scene, Trantor is a planet still reeling from the terrorist attack in The Emperor’s Peace that destroyed the Starbridge sending the space elevator plummeting towards the planet, killing hundreds of millions on the ground. In the opening, Eto Demerzel (Laura Birn) leads a task force to Dwarf Planet Aethra to hunt down whoever financed the attack, but no clues could be found. But while the Empire reals, the Foundation is making the slow 5-year journey to the outer rim, but for all their training, projections still show that 30% of the colonists will still die in the first year. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.  

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