Speaker 1: Hey everybody, this is Jason. We haven't posted anything in
Speaker 1: a while, but that's about to change, as we've been
Speaker 1: recording episodes about Foundation, and I just wanted to make
Speaker 1: a couple quick comments before the actual episode starts. BB
Speaker 1: and I really struggled to get into the show initially,
Speaker 1: so much so that we scrapped the first couple episodes
Speaker 1: that we recorded and decided to just cover all of
Speaker 1: season one in one podcast because we didn't want anyone
Speaker 1: to sit through ten episodes of just negativity like that.
Speaker 1: You know, but I promise you that around midway through
Speaker 1: season two we completely change our tune and we are
Speaker 1: really enjoying the series. We just recorded season two episode nine,
Speaker 1: and we are so excited for the finale and for
Speaker 1: season three to start. And yes, we did record all
Speaker 1: these episodes in advance, mostly because we couldn't like get
Speaker 1: our schedules together to be consistent. This also means that
Speaker 1: as you listen, we will be a few weeks behind
Speaker 1: on the news. For instance, we just found out that
Speaker 1: the release date for season three is July eleventh, so
Speaker 1: we'll be putting out episodes between now and then so
Speaker 1: we can start covering season three as it releases, and
Speaker 1: I believe I'm going to have to double up some
Speaker 1: of these episodes in the first couple of weeks here
Speaker 1: in order for that timing to work out. Anyway, here's
Speaker 1: our coverage of Foundation season one, and remember we will
Speaker 1: like season two a lot better.
Speaker 2: Welcome to spacing Out with BB and Jason this week
Speaker 2: covering season one of Foundation.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Spacing Out.
Speaker 1: I'm BB and I'm Jason, and we are here to
Speaker 1: discuss Foundation, which is currently available to stream on Apple TV.
Speaker 1: And we're taking a little different approach today because we're
Speaker 1: going to look at the entirety of season one, which
Speaker 1: was not the original plan. We were going to go
Speaker 1: episode by episode, and we started down that route and
Speaker 1: it just didn't feel right. I felt like we had.
Speaker 3: Too much bad stuff to say.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of negativity, especially coming from BB's Mike,
Speaker 1: but a lot of I think a lot of frustrations
Speaker 1: and not underderstanding what's going on, and just kind of
Speaker 1: realized that, like, this is a story being told over
Speaker 1: a season and not really like a episodic Yeah, not
Speaker 1: episotic at all, really, So we recalibrated and decided we're
Speaker 1: going to watch all ten episodes of season one and
Speaker 1: then come back and talk to it. And that's what
Speaker 1: we're doing now. So I think we'll do like a
Speaker 1: quick spoiler free part of it, just to say how
Speaker 1: we felt about it, and then we'll go and pick
Speaker 1: apart some of the plot elements. And we haven't seen
Speaker 1: season two yet, so we're not going to spoil these
Speaker 1: season two at all. But we're talking about Foundation season one,
Speaker 1: and this aired between September twenty fourth and November nineteenth
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty one. Is created by David Eskoyer and
Speaker 1: Josh Friedman, and in this season, Foundation chronicles the beginning
Speaker 1: of the epic saga centered on the collapse of the
Speaker 1: Galactic Empire and the efforts of mathematician Harry Selden and
Speaker 1: his followers to mitigate the ensuing Dark Age through the
Speaker 1: creation of the Foundation. The story spans multiple timelines and perspectives,
Speaker 1: weaving political industry, intrigue, rebellion, and philosophical questions into the
Speaker 1: fabric of a sprawling narrative.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, vive check, did we like the season overall?
Speaker 2: How does it stand the test of time?
Speaker 4: All?
Speaker 1: Right? So, without getting into any spoilers for what happens, like,
Speaker 1: how'd you feel about this season of television?
Speaker 3: It was all right. I wouldn't have picked it up personally.
Speaker 3: It doesn't feel like my cup of tea. But from
Speaker 3: the reviews of the second season, I'm interested in like
Speaker 3: at least finishing what I started. It's just like I
Speaker 3: don't know, I could tell it wasn't for me. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's above mediocre.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's definitely it's visually stunning, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's got a lot of.
Speaker 3: Like this, there's a lot of lore.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of lore. I think the lore was
Speaker 1: often quite confusing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, feel like this is like a fan edit, like
Speaker 3: this is this is for somebody who read the books
Speaker 3: and was really into that and now they made it
Speaker 3: into something for them. Like it doesn't feel like like
Speaker 3: if you're just any Joe off the street, I don't
Speaker 3: know if you're going to enjoy this. That's how that's
Speaker 3: my perspective. I'm any Joe.
Speaker 1: I came at this as you know, someone who I
Speaker 1: just read the books this last year, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm later I'll get into like some of the differences,
Speaker 1: but even knowing like the core of the story, like
Speaker 1: there was a lot of elements that were hard to track,
Speaker 1: hard to just follow all the storylines and what's happening sequentially,
Speaker 1: what's happening kind of in different timelines, and just yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of confusion, but there was also still a
Speaker 1: lot of interesting things along the way that we're enough
Speaker 1: to keep me invested to an extent, and there's a
Speaker 1: part of me that was like, I'm frustrated with not
Speaker 1: understanding what's going on, and I kind of land on
Speaker 1: the side where like maybe I'll like give it another
Speaker 1: watch and see if I understand it more. And I
Speaker 1: think you might have came down on the side or
Speaker 1: like this isn't working for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just not for me. It's it's really it's
Speaker 3: a show about math and colonization, Like it's about like empires,
Speaker 3: and it's just not for me. I'm not the target
Speaker 3: audience at all. I think they were trying to get
Speaker 3: a diverse target with their casting, but it falls short
Speaker 3: for me as a diverse audience.
Speaker 1: Meant yeah, also good performances in there, and so I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that we'll look back at season one and be
Speaker 1: like that was kind of rough, had some good elements,
Speaker 1: but you know, they figured it out from there. That's
Speaker 1: what my hope is. All right, well, from here on out,
Speaker 1: there might be spoilers things that come. So if you
Speaker 1: don't want to be spoiled, if we caught you off
Speaker 1: guard by doing a whole season at once, don't listen
Speaker 1: further unless you want to.
Speaker 3: I like being spoiled in all aspects good than you are.
Speaker 3: I think it's good. I think it's just like I
Speaker 3: don't think it's as universal as they want it to be,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: It's Yeah, And we went into this like not really
Speaker 1: knowing much about what this show was. We were based
Speaker 1: on like, hey, this is like if you look up
Speaker 1: lists of like what are the good science fiction shows
Speaker 1: right now, this shows up on it usually pretty high
Speaker 1: on the list. And we watched the trailer for it,
Speaker 1: and we're like, hey, that looks really fun and engaging for.
Speaker 3: As many characters as it has. I wish it felt
Speaker 3: more like the Game of Thrones in terms of the
Speaker 3: drama and the world building and the intrigue and stuff.
Speaker 3: It's just missing all of that for some reason for me,
Speaker 3: at least the first seasons of the Game of Thrones.
Speaker 2: Trivia time, what facts or news could we uncover for Foundation.
Speaker 1: Isaac Asimov wrote a series of eight stories for Astounding
Speaker 1: Science Fiction magazine between nineteen forty two and nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: and then later these stories were published into three books,
Speaker 1: resulting in the Foundation Trilogy, which is kind of how
Speaker 1: it remained for quite a while, and then Asimov returned
Speaker 1: to the series decades later to write two sequels and
Speaker 1: two prequels between nineteen eighty two and nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: The original trilogy has won several awards over the years
Speaker 1: and it's held up as one of the cornerstones of
Speaker 1: science fiction. So several attempts that a film adaptation have
Speaker 1: accred over the years, and one point, New Line Cinema
Speaker 1: spent one point five million dollars developing a film trilogy
Speaker 1: before ultimately producing the Lord of the Rings trilogy. That's
Speaker 1: a hard left and you know, nobody watched that, so
Speaker 1: that was a big fail for them. So then the
Speaker 1: rights kind of bounced around to different studios until Apple
Speaker 1: TV began development as early as twenty five fourteen, and
Speaker 1: in the book series had been considered unfilmable over the
Speaker 1: years due to its settings and the narrative taking place
Speaker 1: over thousands of years, and then another aspect of the
Speaker 1: books is that in the books the robots are just
Speaker 1: some obscure legend that barely get mentioned, and even the
Speaker 1: word robots only known to a few number of people.
Speaker 1: But so Isaac Asimov. He also wrote a series called
Speaker 1: the Robot Series, and he may have heard of his
Speaker 1: like three Laws of Robotics. And he also wrote another
Speaker 1: series called the Galactic Empire series, And all three of
Speaker 1: these were separate entities, and then at some point later
Speaker 1: in his life he decided he was going to merge
Speaker 1: all of these and wrote some stories that connected them
Speaker 1: all and said they're all part of the same universe
Speaker 1: in different parts of the timeline. So that's what we
Speaker 1: see in the show, as they're kind of bringing in
Speaker 1: that robot aspect to it. The series began filming in
Speaker 1: Ireland and also filmed in the island country of Malta
Speaker 1: and the Canary Islands. Season one was interrupted by the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic and several locations were changed due to restrictions,
Speaker 1: and it took nineteen months to film the first season.
Speaker 3: Hmmm, that's sad. That's rough for a film crew.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I do believe there's a lot of times
Speaker 1: that they intended to have like bigger scenes, bigger crowds,
Speaker 1: and they kind of had to reduce and change the
Speaker 1: way they shot things to cover for that. The series
Speaker 1: composer is Bear McCreery, and we know him from Battlestar
Speaker 1: Galactica among many other science fiction shows. He's kind of
Speaker 1: the go to guy for doing sci fi television these days,
Speaker 1: and the season had a substantial budget estimated around forty
Speaker 1: five million, which rivals other epic series such as Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones.
Speaker 2: Deep Space Dive. Let's break down some of our thoughts
Speaker 2: on this season. You can share your thoughts with us
Speaker 2: through email or social media. We may use your comments
Speaker 2: on an upcoming episode.
Speaker 3: And yet they couldn't capture that magic. Nope, they were
Speaker 3: missing a character like little Finger or something, you know,
Speaker 3: somebody everybody loves to hate because they try the way
Speaker 3: that they painted Empire, they kind of want you to
Speaker 3: feel bad for him because he's a clone. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: give me a fucking villain, bro, give me somebody I
Speaker 3: can sink my teeth into somebody who is like just
Speaker 3: fucking evil, Like there's no ifs answer butts, Like he
Speaker 3: literally annihilated two planets in the first couple of episodes,
Speaker 3: and later in the season he's crying about being imperfect.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I can't relate. I can't, I don't, I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't know what to feel about this person. I
Speaker 3: feel like they they should have made it very clear
Speaker 3: that this is the bad guy, this is who we
Speaker 3: want to take down, this is our common enemy. And
Speaker 3: it's so wishy washy, and they spend so much time
Speaker 3: with him and and like making him like a tragic
Speaker 3: figures somehow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like, I don't know, your heart's not really
Speaker 1: with him, no, like the youngest one, Yeah, like I
Speaker 1: felt for him when he kind of he was trying
Speaker 1: to hide his differences and falling in love and then
Speaker 1: getting betrayed, and like his journey was tragic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they're all the same guy, so it's.
Speaker 1: It's well, no, they're all corrupted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that was the last we hear about it.
Speaker 3: And so my favorite was when the robot lady just
Speaker 3: mrked him. She's just like, wow, I made the executive decision,
Speaker 3: you bitches. And if she finds out the other guy's impure,
Speaker 3: he's running scared.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do not trust any of your feelings with
Speaker 1: that woman anymore.
Speaker 3: Which she's a robot, right, but she's a robot with visions.
Speaker 3: That's weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So she has some complexity to her, which.
Speaker 3: I wish they explored more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm hoping they continue to do that because
Speaker 1: you know, it was interesting that she had gone through
Speaker 1: that rite of passage on that. I don't remember the
Speaker 1: details of what that planet was, but that religious place journey.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Maiden. Yeah, the Maiden.
Speaker 1: She had done that, and she definitely held beliefs about
Speaker 1: that that seemed almost conflicting for her. And then she
Speaker 1: was definitely had emotions at the end of the series
Speaker 1: when she ripped her face off.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The fact that she don't have lips under there
Speaker 3: that manipulate that little flaps, it's just teeth, you know.
Speaker 3: It reminded me of Chucky. Oh that one. I think
Speaker 3: it's like Chucky two or three where they go to
Speaker 3: the Chucky manufacturing plant and you see how they build
Speaker 3: the little good guy dolls. I watched too much Chucky
Speaker 3: as a child.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've seen Chucky outside of just like
Speaker 1: clips here and there.
Speaker 5: No, can we watch Chucky and do a podcast about Chucky.
Speaker 5: It's kind of science fiction because it's about a man
Speaker 5: who possesses a doll, and the doll then goes on
Speaker 5: like a murder spree trying to become human again, and
Speaker 5: then they jump the sharks.
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say, look like a
Speaker 1: terminator because they have the skull with just the teeth.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I'm sorry. I didn't do a Terminator reference.
Speaker 3: I did a Chucky reference instead. I don't know. It's
Speaker 3: also like anytime there's a world and this this kind
Speaker 3: of like a Star Wars thing too.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: I don't know why, but they're like, oh well, this
Speaker 3: is just a water world. Everything's covered in water. Oh
Speaker 3: well this this is a world with sand, everything's covered
Speaker 3: in sand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no like diverse ecosystems, Like you're the ice planet,
Speaker 1: You're the sand planet. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't like that because the planet we live on
Speaker 3: here today, in this Earth has biodiversity. And it's just
Speaker 3: like how big are these planets that they're just cover
Speaker 3: I mean I can understand like a planet covered in
Speaker 3: water because that's where we're going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just the quantity of water on that planet.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Is it just that we're so special that it just
Speaker 3: doesn't occur? In other planets. I guess we. I'm trying
Speaker 3: to think of like Pluto and like Neptune and Saturn
Speaker 3: and Jupiter, and we are pretty special, I guess so.
Speaker 1: But if it's a like a life supporting planet, you.
Speaker 3: Think it can be more similar, you would think, But.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe it has to do with our
Speaker 1: rotating access and everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, our magnet our magnetism just a pet
Speaker 3: peeve of mine, like, oh well this what this planet
Speaker 3: is just covered in water, that's it. Where would you
Speaker 3: want to live if you got to choose out of
Speaker 3: those planets that they're all living in in this series?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the water planet was like super religious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, do you want to live in a really
Speaker 3: conservative planet?
Speaker 1: Because I would very restricting, no science and.
Speaker 3: If you read your fucking mark, like you're gonna die.
Speaker 3: The guy with the library was executed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then you know the Foundation. They're kind of
Speaker 1: primitive and they're whole setup.
Speaker 3: Well they live in tents mostly, yeah, or campers.
Speaker 1: So they're kind of roughing it out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and everyone's wearing a coat, which tells me it's cold.
Speaker 1: And then you've got the whatever they call where the
Speaker 1: empire is.
Speaker 3: But You wouldn't get to live on the palace with him.
Speaker 1: No, you'd be in the city, somewhere.
Speaker 3: In the multi layered city where some people have never
Speaker 3: seen the light of day except for that crack that form.
Speaker 3: I don't know. None of these planets seem like viable
Speaker 3: places to live.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe I'd go on those desert walks
Speaker 1: for the salt.
Speaker 3: Mine help people. At least it's not cold.
Speaker 1: Oh they seemed happy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did, like that lady that challenged the empire though, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and she and she was right, but he didn't let
Speaker 3: her win because he cheated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he just made up some vision. Yeah, crazy, and
Speaker 1: now he knows he's like soul.
Speaker 3: Listen, how do you do with that? That's crazy. I mean,
Speaker 3: as a person who doesn't believe in like a soul,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be bothered. I'd be like, oh wow, But
Speaker 3: you know what would suck if, like when he got
Speaker 3: to do mushrooms and stuff, he didn't hallucinate, like any
Speaker 3: hallucigen it like anything where you hallucinate. It doesn't work
Speaker 3: on him because he doesn't have a soul. Then I'd
Speaker 3: be really cross. I'd be like, dude, these mushrooms suck.
Speaker 1: They don't work.
Speaker 3: Do you think that's how it works. If you don't
Speaker 3: have a soul, then you don't get to hallucinate, you know.
Speaker 1: You don't get to look upon the face of God.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But also if you like open the arc of the Covenant,
Speaker 1: you'd probably be fine too. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're saying those Nazis had more soul than him.
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh my god.
Speaker 3: We can talk about women and their rule and saving
Speaker 3: the world and the hole of humanity and how their
Speaker 3: rules are super undermined because this big white guy comes
Speaker 3: out of this black obelisk and is like, everything is
Speaker 3: going according to Bland.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you were all just my ponds. Yeah, and what's
Speaker 4: her name, Salvor. She's like, hey, I'm the one that
Speaker 4: like deciphered this stuff and brought that ship here and
Speaker 4: did all the hard work. And he's like, oh, yeah, thanks.
Speaker 3: I guess I don't know who you are, but you
Speaker 3: did it, girl. Not even a pat on the back.
Speaker 1: He can't I can't touch people.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't know. I forgot. He's a hologramd It's
Speaker 3: it's not even like unseen labor at this point. It's
Speaker 3: like very clear labor that is just blatantly ignored and
Speaker 3: taken advance, like taken for granted. And I'm really interested
Speaker 3: to see what the meeting of the two protagonists means
Speaker 3: in the future. Yeah, because I feel like they're already
Speaker 3: like this unlike individually, they're already like this unstoppable force
Speaker 3: like this like predictive, like I can see the future. Shit,
Speaker 3: I can. The fact that like they can connect with
Speaker 3: each other over millions and millions of like light years
Speaker 3: away is crazy, and I feel like it's not insignificant
Speaker 3: or else they wouldn't show it, but it's just like
Speaker 3: right now, it's just kind of like this big mystery,
Speaker 3: and I don't know. I just I felt like I
Speaker 3: felt really bad for her for not getting answers when
Speaker 3: that guy showed up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so now it's driven her to go find her
Speaker 1: own answers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because she worked so hard to like save that
Speaker 3: ship and make sure that her people weren't dying and
Speaker 3: stuff like that, and like nobody was like, hey, thanks
Speaker 3: did a good job.
Speaker 1: So you don't meet your heroes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and yeah, it just it sucked. I thought it
Speaker 3: was a really good plot twist that that guy's girlfriend
Speaker 3: was an insurrectionist. She wanted to overthrow the government. Oh
Speaker 3: of the Empire's girlfriend. Yeah, she was playing the long con.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wonder if that's the end of the first story
Speaker 1: or not. Because they kept her alive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but all of her family and friends we'll never
Speaker 3: remember her. Yeah, she's been erased from her life, which
Speaker 3: would suck. Where do you go, like they should? I mean,
Speaker 3: they could have just let her back out into the world,
Speaker 3: and it would have just been like starting over from scratch.
Speaker 3: You don't have any friends, you don't have any community,
Speaker 3: you don't have anything that like existing in the world
Speaker 3: without anything to hold you to it in terms of
Speaker 3: human connection. What a lonely existence. But then they're also
Speaker 3: going to put her in solitary, which sucks. I don't
Speaker 3: like the Carcoo state in general, but this one seems
Speaker 3: really shitty. Yeah, and they're gonna feed her through a
Speaker 3: feeding tube, so she won't even get to eat or anything.
Speaker 3: That's like one of my favorite things to do. I
Speaker 3: was shocked also when like they came and got him, Like,
Speaker 3: I was shocked that his girlfriend ended up being an op.
Speaker 3: And then I was doubly shocked when his dawn came
Speaker 3: in and was like got you bitch, Like that was
Speaker 3: the most intrigue and the most like that was one
Speaker 3: of the heightened spaces or storylines for me. That was
Speaker 3: like super memorable, very like taught like twists and turns
Speaker 3: and like very well thought out about like what was happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it definitely felt like that. I think that was
Speaker 1: episode nine.
Speaker 3: Why did it take that long to get here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that felt like really like the climax of
Speaker 1: the season, and just like the way we ended up
Speaker 1: watching it. We watched it over a few months and
Speaker 1: we kind of had to take a break in there
Speaker 1: because there was like family stuff and holidays and going on.
Speaker 1: Then we came back and watched that episode and it
Speaker 1: was like, first I was like a little loss on
Speaker 1: what was happening. Those recaps weren't enough to like Kitchiga
Speaker 1: back in line. But but yeah, that was like a
Speaker 1: wild ride of an episode. Yeah, because there was that
Speaker 1: storyline going on with everything on Terminus and the foundation
Speaker 1: with that ship.
Speaker 3: See. I wish that the ship subplot would have been
Speaker 3: as exciting. It was just like Oh no, we're gonna jump.
Speaker 3: Oh no, it's gonna jump. Oh no, it's gonna jump.
Speaker 3: It just felt very like Cooi and like, oh, is
Speaker 3: it going to happen? I don't know kind of vibe
Speaker 3: I didn't. I didn't. I'm like, give me some action,
Speaker 3: give me some intrigue. I want to see those two
Speaker 3: like women fighting, like really getting into each other's nerves
Speaker 3: and like finding them like as worthy opponents to one another,
Speaker 3: Like show me where the respect comes from on both sides.
Speaker 3: I don't know, very sad. I was just like I
Speaker 3: wanted more from a series that costs as much money.
Speaker 1: I have a few things about how it compares for
Speaker 1: the books.
Speaker 3: Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1: I won't drag this on too long because I know
Speaker 1: it can get tedious. But obviously, like the core concept
Speaker 1: is the same. You've got Harry Selden in Psychohistory and
Speaker 1: then the Galactic Empire, the Empire in the books, it's
Speaker 1: like already crumbling once you get past like the first
Speaker 1: section of the book, and like because in this final
Speaker 1: episode there they were faking like that their planets were
Speaker 1: destroyed or whatever, so the Empire wouldn't bother with them.
Speaker 1: But the Empire is already like crumbling and like can't
Speaker 1: deal with things that far out in the books, so
Speaker 1: they're already like on their own, and you don't really
Speaker 1: follow the empire at all. It's all from the perspective
Speaker 1: of the Foundation and other characters, and the whole thing
Speaker 1: with the clones, like that cloned storyline is not part
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, the Foundation is pretty much the same,
Speaker 1: and then a lot of the characters are like the
Speaker 1: way the book is written. The books, the stories were
Speaker 1: written as a like kind of individual stories that deal
Speaker 1: with like a certain chunk of time, and then we
Speaker 1: jump forward in time we have new characters and a
Speaker 1: new crisis or whatever, and those old characters are maybe referenced,
Speaker 1: but they don't continue on. But like we have you know,
Speaker 1: Gail Dornick, and she's like a minor character in the
Speaker 1: first story of the book and that's it for her.
Speaker 1: But now we have her continuing on and becoming a
Speaker 1: big protagonists of the Soul show. The same thing with
Speaker 1: Salver Harden and then Harry Seldyn is also a lot
Speaker 1: more involved in the show.
Speaker 3: You said it's not as Culty in the books, right.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. No, Yeah, they don't really like
Speaker 1: put him on a pedestal like that. He does show
Speaker 1: up in the vault kind of like the show has it,
Speaker 1: But the vault's not a mysterious thing that they don't understand.
Speaker 1: It's just like a time locked thing that when he's
Speaker 1: predicted that there's going to be a new crisis, he
Speaker 1: comes out, talks to them for a minute, and then
Speaker 1: goes away until the next.
Speaker 3: One, like a kitchen time.
Speaker 1: It's also like he can't really interact with people. It's
Speaker 1: like a pre recorded thing like, oh, at this point,
Speaker 1: this should be happening, and this should be happening, and
Speaker 1: this is an idea of how you should be dealing
Speaker 1: with it, and I'll see you later. And then sometimes
Speaker 1: he's wrong as well. Yeah, a lot more of like
Speaker 1: personal and emotional relationships struggles, that sort of stuff. The
Speaker 1: books are more like big ideas and intellectual challenges rather
Speaker 1: than character to development and stuff. And then season one
Speaker 1: at least has really condensed some of the timelines, so
Speaker 1: we're not jumping through centuries, you know, we do move
Speaker 1: forward a few times, but.
Speaker 3: It's like fifty one hundred years at a time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're keeping our characters alive through that, through
Speaker 1: the what do they call it, like the cryostasis or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's quite a bit different, quite a lot more
Speaker 1: stuff they're putting in between the events that happened in
Speaker 1: the books. And then I mean, like the episode one
Speaker 1: was pretty much a straightforward adaptation of the first story.
Speaker 1: From there on it differs quite a bit, and there's
Speaker 1: kind of elements of the books that you pop up
Speaker 1: in there, but by and large just starting to do
Speaker 1: its own thing. And according to chat GPT, many people
Speaker 1: appreciated the show's attempt to modernize and humanize the material,
Speaker 1: making it more accessible to a wider audience, but then
Speaker 1: other people criticize it for deviating from the original source material.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the original source material was so good, why did
Speaker 3: you deviate from it? I mean, I can understand how
Speaker 3: some of it's hard to translate television.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they had to make us make it
Speaker 1: adapted for the screen.
Speaker 3: And like, I would have loved a series where every
Speaker 3: two or three episodes to new cast a new ensemble
Speaker 3: and we're doing something completely different. It would have been challenging,
Speaker 3: it would have been unique, it would have been interesting,
Speaker 3: it would have been like a fucking trip, because that's
Speaker 3: never been done. You're always keeping your same people because
Speaker 3: that's like contracts or whatever. But whatever, Like you had
Speaker 3: the money. I don't know. I've never read the books though,
Speaker 3: so I'm not like a purist. I just know that
Speaker 3: when I watched The Game of Thrones, that first season
Speaker 3: was the books. It was so good because of that,
Speaker 3: because it was such a loyal adaptation to the books.
Speaker 3: And then it became something different. It was still like
Speaker 3: taking a lot of information from the source material, and
Speaker 3: then when it started doing its own thing, that's when
Speaker 3: it fell apart. And it's sad. I don't know. I
Speaker 3: like I said, it's above mediocre for me, like because
Speaker 3: of the settings and the actors, but the story for me,
Speaker 3: it's not hitting. But I don't know if I personally
Speaker 3: would be interested in something that's based off of a
Speaker 3: science fiction novel written in the forties and fifties. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I've never heard of the Foundation. I've heard of the
Speaker 3: robot laws, because that's more relevant to today's like AI technology,
Speaker 3: like questions and how we interact with technology. But I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 1: Math and.
Speaker 3: The Falling of Empires.
Speaker 1: It's well. I think the fact that like no one's
Speaker 1: really been able to put it to screen in any
Speaker 1: way has kept it more of like a like an
Speaker 1: old science fiction book that was great at.
Speaker 3: The time like a classic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's kind of like you know, Doune
Speaker 1: was considered a really hard thing to adapt. They did
Speaker 1: give it a shot, and was that the nineties eighties?
Speaker 3: It was the eighties, not the board worms. Oh that's
Speaker 3: flash Gordon. Sorry, I don't know. I think science fiction
Speaker 3: like sometimes it does translate, but this one, I just
Speaker 3: think they were doing too much. Like if they wanted
Speaker 3: to focus on emotions and interpersonal drama, they didn't. To me,
Speaker 3: they didn't do it well enough, because, like I said,
Speaker 3: the most entertaining part of this was watching uh brother Dawn,
Speaker 3: like getting bamboozled into leaving his safety and being switched
Speaker 3: at birth. Another part that was interesting was when Gail's
Speaker 3: boyfriend stabs Harry and then throws the knife in the
Speaker 3: cry and the sleeping pod and then like zoots are out.
Speaker 3: Then we don't get any there's no resolution with that.
Speaker 3: We don't know what happens to him. We watched some
Speaker 3: videos of a court trial. I hate that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm still kind of unclear why a lot of
Speaker 1: that happened the way it did, and everything with Gail
Speaker 1: in in that ship talking to the fake Harry Selden
Speaker 1: was just I couldn't track it very well to figure out, like,
Speaker 1: what's the point of all this?
Speaker 3: And it's just showing how smart Gail is.
Speaker 1: They do bring up like that there's a second foundation,
Speaker 1: and that was the cool reveal and that's something from
Speaker 1: the books, and I was surprised that it came up
Speaker 1: this early. But yeah, so like there's that reveal that
Speaker 1: there's another foundation out there doing a similar thing. But
Speaker 1: that's really all I feel like I got out of that,
Speaker 1: which took you know, a good chunk of a couple episodes.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know. I'm just like I
Speaker 3: want to show up, I want to participate, But what
Speaker 3: are you giving me in return? What do I get?
Speaker 3: I get a bunch of girls that are doing all
Speaker 3: the work and none of the praise. Sad, sad. I
Speaker 3: don't know. I want to know how many women are
Speaker 3: in the writing room. That's something that I would be
Speaker 3: interested in or even directing or you know, because to
Speaker 3: me it feels like a guy show.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to know how many are in
Speaker 1: the writer's room, but in terms of writing the episodes,
Speaker 1: I'm saying one, two, three, four or five six episodes
Speaker 1: that have names I believe to be women's names.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's more than half. Yeah, why are they doing
Speaker 3: this to these women? Are they misogynists? I don't know,
Speaker 3: but I do like the role that women play in this.
Speaker 3: It's just that the payback, the payout for like all
Speaker 3: this work and labor, is just not there. It sucks.
Speaker 1: Interesting. I'm just looking at seasons two's writing credits, and
Speaker 1: Jane Espenson shows up on a number of these episodes.
Speaker 1: I know she's a really good writer. She's been on
Speaker 1: a lot of science fiction shows, including like Battlestar and Firefly.
Speaker 3: Okay, well it happens. Should we watch the next season
Speaker 3: all of it again? Or should we do episode by episode?
Speaker 1: What do you feel? Because I mean, I have reason
Speaker 1: to believe it's better, a stronger season than this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Second season received more positive reviews from critics, with many
Speaker 1: agreeing that as an improvement of the first season, emphasizing
Speaker 1: the more accessible pacing, better plot, improved into personal characterizations,
Speaker 1: and overall satisfaction with the season's payoff.
Speaker 3: Thank god. Okay, yeah, let's just episode by episode then,
Speaker 3: all right, hold me to it.
Speaker 1: Well, that sounds like the plan. Yeah, so there's no
Speaker 1: spoiler section. No astral queen, Astral queen.
Speaker 2: Who was the standout character in the season?
Speaker 3: Oh, who's your astral queen?
Speaker 1: So looking at the entire season, I mean, for me,
Speaker 1: like the only ones in contention would be, uh, Salvor
Speaker 1: and Gail. And I think Salvor just did so much
Speaker 1: more in the series.
Speaker 3: She did all the work, She did all the heavy lifting.
Speaker 3: That's a good one. I picked the robot lady because
Speaker 3: she she read him to filth. She read him to
Speaker 3: filth when he didn't have a vision. She's like, to
Speaker 3: not have a vision, to not be able to see
Speaker 3: that is the worst read him down. And then when
Speaker 3: she straight up just like murdered that guy. And then
Speaker 3: when she was like sad with that one woman and
Speaker 3: she's like, yeah, you know your heart was in the
Speaker 3: right place, but he's going to kill you and it's
Speaker 3: already happening. You're already dead. Don't challenge the empire, Yeah,
Speaker 3: because she's she should be in charge. She's the one
Speaker 3: who could stay there and lead and handle it for centuries.
Speaker 3: But a robot lead. But you know, I'm not a speciist,
Speaker 3: So yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Think very few people know she's a Robot.
Speaker 3: Which is weird because like, how many portraits have they done?
Speaker 3: How many family photos do you think they have? And
Speaker 3: that girl's always there with that square skirt.
Speaker 1: Maybe they assume she's a clone too. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: that's our Astral Queens then, and we will be back
Speaker 1: to talk about season two.
Speaker 3: And I think that's all we have, right, I think
Speaker 3: that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for spacing out with us, and remember
Speaker 1: to respect and enjoy the piece.
Speaker 2: Thank you for spacing out with Bib and Jason. You
Speaker 2: can help us out by subscribing and leaving a positive
Speaker 2: rating or review. Remember you can contact us through email
Speaker 2: or social media. Next time we will cover Foundation season two.
Speaker 2: We hope you will join us