Foundation: Season 2

The Galactic Empire is showing some early signs of the decline prophesised by Hari Seldon and his science of psychohistory. Unnerved, the Genetic Triumvirate of the Cleon Dynasty plan to shore up their position by marrying Queen Sareth I of the Cloud Dominion, a powerful ally, and employing the formidable General Bel Riose to neutralise the Foundation, now resurgent as a religious force in the galaxy. Meanwhile, Gaal Dornick and Salvor Hardin find themselves working together with a copy of Hari Seldon's consciousness to fulfil a key part of his design: the establishment of a Second Foundation.

The first season of Apple TV+'s Foundation was a very qualified, partial success. The vfx, music and general atmosphere and mood were all very accomplished, as were the performances of Lee Pace, Terrence Mann, Cassian Bilton, Lou Llobell, Laura Birn and Jared Harris. The political intrigue and scheming on the Imperial capital world of Trantor was also very well-done, justifying the show's informal tagline of being "Game of Thrones in space." Unfortunately, the show's quality level dipped rather wildly whenever it returned to the storyline of Terminus, the Foundation and Salvor Hardin; the weakest part of Foundation was the actual bit about the Foundation and adapted (loosely) from Isaac Asimov's source material. Pacing was also problematic.

Season 2 picks up the baton by adapting, also loosely, the second novel of the original Foundation Trilogy, Foundation and Empire. However, the season benefits a great deal from having all of its disparate plot threads converge at the same point, meaning the season has a much greater sense of coherence and structure from the start. The addition of Ella-Rae Smith as Queen Sareth, Sandra Yi Sncindiver as Sareth's advisor Rue, and Ben Daniels as Bel Riose are all excellent. The show's conceit of having the same three actors playing not just the Emperor at different stages of life, but clones of them repeating across generations also allows Terrence Mann, Lee Pace and Cassian Bilton to effectively play new characters. The season also has a dramatically increased screen presence for Jared Harris, who's heavy use in the marketing and almost total absence from Season 1 felt a bit like bait-and-switch marketing. Harris is more present in Season 2 and has a more satisfying storyline.

The season builds to an impressively epic finale, though Asimov purists, probably more satisfied by a closer following of the book then the first up to this point, may end up spitting blood at a pretty major divergence from the events in the novels. Those less wedded to the original texts will find much to admire here with impressive dramatic and vfx set-pieces established with solid character arcs and intriguing politicking. It helps that the show is allowed to be a character drama rather than emphasising explosions and action. Pacing is also much-improved, though some of the events with the founding of the Second Foundation threaten to chug a little.

Foundation's second season (****) represents an impressive improvement over the first season, with stronger writing, dialogue and characterisation, although some minor flaws remain. But the show is on a pleasingly improved trajectory.

The season is available to watch on Apple TV+ now. A third season is currently airing on the same service.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

First trailer for MURDERBOT adaptation released

Apple TV+ has released the first trailer for Murderbot, their adaptation of Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries novel/novella series. The show will launch on 16 May 2025 and will consist of ten episodes.

The TV show follows the story of the books, with an android SecUnit breaking its programming to "go rogue," though in this case that means doing jobs for hapless groups of humans between bingeing TV shows.

The show stars Alexander Skarsgard as the titular Murderbot, with David Dastmalchian, Norma Dumezweni, Sabrina Wu, Tattiawna Jones, Akshay Khanna and Tamara Podemski as the humans it has to constantly bail out of trouble. In an amusing device, the series will also feature show-within-a-show The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, with its own cast including Clarg Gregg, John Cho, DeWanda Wise, Jack McBrayer and Anna Konkle (interesting to see how big a thing this is, given that cast can't be cheap).

Murderbot confirms Apple TV's impressive commitment to the science fiction genre. The streamer is also hosting For All Mankind, Silo, Foundation, the genre-adjacent Mythic Quest and current hit-of-the-moment Severance.

The Murderbot Diaries consists so far of seven books: All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry and System Collapse. These were recently reissued in omnibus editions.

For All Mankind: Season 4

2003. Happy Valley has expanded into a full-scale colony on Mars, where technology is being developed to allow humans to capture asteroids and swing them into Mars or Earth orbit to exploit their resources. The United States and Soviet Union are now full-blown allies, marching jointly into the exploration of space. The many workers who lost their livelihoods with the collapse of the oil industry are now finding fresh employment on the Moon and Mars, but the same problems of low pay and class divides follow them. The discovery of a metal-rich asteroid which can solve Earth's shortages in a single swoop spurs a dangerous mission, but political turmoil in Moscow and growing discontent at Happy Valley make the mission anything but straightforward.

For All Mankind's first two seasons staked a claim for the show to be the best slice of science fiction on television at the moment (certainly following the wrapping up of The Expanse). A cool alt-history take on the space race, fantastic visuals and pretty good writing all made for a compelling drama. Season 3 abruptly reversed that course, with hackneyed love triangles and tedious personal drama threatening to undo all the good work achieved in worldbuilding (not the first time this has happened on a Ron Moore-produced show, to be fair).

Season 4 occupies a ground much closer to the former than the latter. Thankfully, it stops and reverses the rot from Season 3. The story is much better, the aggravating love triangle story from Season 3 has been fully exorcised from the show and we're back to the interesting mix of science and alt-reality politics that made the first two seasons compelling. However, the show hasn't fully swung back to that level of quality. There's still some rather far-fetched plotting, and the show's failure to commit to getting rid of its increasingly ancient central character is quite daft.

The season divides its plot between several character arcs. Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt) is a reluctant political refugee in the Soviet Union, where her space knowledge is being wasted, until a political realignment brings her to the attention of a new regime. Aleida (Coral Peña), still suffering traumatic after-effects from the bombing of NASA at the end of Season 3, decides on a new career path. Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman), now in his seventies, is comically squatting on Mars and refusing to leave, so NASA has left him in a command position (and, although it's under-explored, possibly studying the impact of low-gravity existence on his ageing body). Newcomer Miles Dale (Toby Kebbell) is a redundant oil worker who gets a new job on Mars, but finds the job isn't all that he thought it might be.

Season 4 balances these storylines well and ties them together nicely at the end of the season, creating a much more cohesive storyline than the spotty third season. This is no mean feat with multiple groups of characters active in the United States, Soviet Union, on Mars and on various spacecraft. The interaction of the storylines is pretty good.

However, the show continues to mix cool realism (the long travel times to Mars and the inability to engage in real-time conversation with Earth) with decidedly bonkers speculative elements (gigantic giga-engines that can steer asteroids). This mix was odd in Season 2 but has become de rigour for the show by this point, and does give us some cool visuals and awesome vfx sequences, so fair enough.

Anyone who's read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy can probably see some of the plot twists coming a mile off, with musings on capitalism-in-spaaaace and how it leads to the predictable repeating of patterns we see on Earth. So the Happy Valley colony quickly becomes a stratified society between the above-deckers and the maintenance workers belowdecks, complete with a black market and secret bars. We're not quite at the point of full independence (I suspect that will rear its head several seasons down the line) but this is a clear transitional story. It's not that original, to be honest, but Kebbell's solid performance as Miles Dale and fellow newcomer Tyner Rushing's great turn as Samantha Massey both help sell it.

On the negative side, the lengths the show goes to in order to keep previous main characters in the frame remains quite implausible. Ed should have been retired at least one season ago, and Kelly has relatively little to do. At least Margo gets a meaty storyline with some intriguing twists. And I'll forgive a lot of these problems for keeping Danny out of the picture this season. On another flipside, the absence of former-President Ellen feels jarringly abrupt, but I suppose her story purpose has been fulfilled.

Season 4 of For All Mankind (****) splendidly improves on the tedious third season and brings us back much closer to the quality of the first two. We're still not back to the show at its best, but this season is a big improvement over last year and opens the story up for a very interesting fifth season.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

RUMOUR: BABYLON 5 reboot dead at CW, still in development with Warner Brothers

Rumours are swirling that the Babylon 5 reboot project may be getting a renewed lease of life.

As previously related, Warner Brothers put Babylon 5 into development with a whole new fresh lick of paint as a ground-up reboot, with original writer/creator/showrunner J. Michael Straczynski once again in charge. The CW picked up the project and spent two years developing a pilot script (an unusually long time) before the network was sold off to new owners, who promptly smoked almost its entire drama development schedule to focus on cheap reality programming. Although Babylon 5 2.0 wasn't quite dead, it had certainly been dealt a serious injury and did not look likely to survive.

However, Warner Brothers have taken the view that there's no reason to waste all that expensive development work and have been shopping the project to other venues. The most logical option, HBO Max, is seemingly out of the question because they have their own budget and development issues in the wake of the Discovery merger. HBO proper don't seem interested, despite the presence of self-confessed Babylon 5 uberfan George R.R. Martin in the development process over there.

That meant Warner Brothers having to team up with another streamer or network. WB have a good relationship with Netflix, where former Babylon 5 scriptwriter Neil Gaiman (he's also done some other work) is currently working on their adaptation of Sandman. It's also possible that Amazon might be looking for a space opera show to replace the recently-concluded The Expanse. Paramount+ have so much Star Trek on the go that it's improbable they'd want a competing space opera show, but they do also have Halo on the go, suggesting they might be interested if the script was good enough. However, having two space opera franchises in operation might instead just make that possibility even less likely.

Some rumours (cited here) have Apple TV+ circling the property. Apple TV+ also have two ongoing space opera franchises, with the original alt-history From All Mankind charting an alternate history of the 20th and 21st centuries where the Space Race between the USSR and USA never wound down in the 1970s but continued full tilt with missions to Mars. Meanwhile Foundation is a loose adaptation of the Isaac Asimov novel series of the same name. Apple TV+ has also enjoyed success with psychological SF thriller Severance and the partially SF-themed sitcom Mythic Quest (which featured an outstanding literary SF storyline in its second season featuring actors playing authors Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Ursula K. Le Guin).

However, Apple are possibly about to loose their biggest draw, with football comedy-drama Ted Lasso (itself a Warner Brothers co-production) set to conclude after three seasons. If Apple can't find a direct replacement, they might be looking to establish a broader portfolio of shows with broad appeal. Babylon 5 is often cited as being enormously ahead of its time, featuring serialised storytelling long before it was fashionable, cutting-edge vfx, epic space battles, rich political intrigue and complex characters, often acting in morally flexible ways.

There are all strong arguments, but it does not mean that Babylon 5 reboot will definitely go ahead, at Apple TV+ or elsewhere. It does suggest that the CW was not quite the last, best hope for the project, and there are other interests circling it.

New Vince Gilligan show lands on Apple TV+ with two-season order

Apple TV+ has given a two-season order to Vince Gilligan's new TV show. The Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator is working on the show with Sony Television and will re-team with actress Rhea Seehorn.

Presumably, this is the science fiction idea Gilligan was recently discussing. The show will have a somewhat contemporary setting, but with an SF "twist."

Seehorn played the character of Kim Wexler across all six seasons of Better Call Saul, attracting significant critical acclaim for her performance and an Emmy nomination (although, remarkably, not a win).

For All Mankind: Season 3

1992. The United States and the Soviet Union are preparing for a new phase in their rivalry: a race to get the first people onto the surface of Mars. But they are joined in the fight by Helios, an independent company run by a charismatic, visionary founder who wants in on the action. The three-horse race to Mars gets underway, but political expediency may compromise the integrity of the mission.

Fifteen years ago, Ronald D. Moore had just delivered the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica, arguably the two greatest seasons of science fiction television in genre history. Brilliant vfx, fantastic acting and strong writing had combined to deliver a show that could very comfortably go head-to-head with any of the A-tier "prestige dramas" airing on the likes of HBO. Season 3 started the same way, but quickly fell of a cliff: imaginative writing and storylines had been replaced by lowest-common-denominator soap opera drama (such as an overreliance on love triangles), the formerly well-thought-out worldbuilding had developed cracks through which you could fly a Mercury-class battlestar, and contrivance and convenience had replaced intelligent plotting.

Unbelievably, the same thing has happened again. The first two seasons of Ronald D. Moore's For All Mankind are brilliant, with superb writing helping deliver fantastic performances and clever storytelling, all supported by some of the best vfx ever seen on the small screen. Season 1 was excellent; Season 2 was better, by a hair.

Season 3 starts off in exactly the same vein with what might be one of its strongest hours. Polaris is a fantastic, self-contained disaster movie with several regular characters stuck on the world's first orbital hotel, which soon develops a fault. Unfolding like a cross between Apollo 13 and one of the best episodes of Thunderbirds, the episode delivers fantastic spectacle rooted in interesting ideas. The next couple of episodes speculate intriguingly on the politics and science behind an increasingly dangerous space race as NASA, the Soviet Space Agency and Helios all compete to get to Mars first, rather than safely. We get one more great episode out of this, Happy Valley, as the race turns dangerous with one of the ships developing a fault, forcing the others to argue about who is going to go back and rescue them.

However, there is a ticking time bomb in For All Mankind that was planted back in Season 2 which explodes with full force in Season 3. Back in Season 2 we got a brief burst of tedious melodrama with a spectacularly unconvincing love triangle subplot that was mind-numbingly dull and unconvincing, but at least was dealt with briefly. In Season 3 this plot is inexplicably brought back, even more inexplicably given massive prominence and then turns into some kind of surreal satire of itself as the season goes on, resulting in deaths, mayhem and explosions in a manner so contrived and unbelievable as to verge on the comical. Episode after episode, you just hope this storyline and the character it centres on, the selfish and utterly unsympathetic Danny, will just end and instead the writers double down on it. It's like watching a football team that's heading to win the World Cup but the coach benches all of his star players to focus on the least-talented players ever to set foot on the pitch.

Although this storyline is the most egregious example of the declining in both writing and plotting this season, it is not the only victim. Another storyline about a character being compromised by Russia ends with them being whisked off to the Soviet Union, presumably by the same teleporter used to capture Jim Hopper in Stranger Things. In another storyline, a character is swept up by a cult-like group who think that NASA is hiding...something. Their bananas ideology is never really explained and their goals and objectives are obtuse, so it's kind of hard to invest in this story or what's going on, especially as the ramping-up of their status from "minor annoyance" to "massive national security threat" takes place so jarringly abruptly that it, again, verges on being silly rather than dramatic. The worldbuilding is also iffy: the United States now has limitless energy thanks to the advent of fusion power, meaning some of the economic issues the country is reported as facing should be non-existent instead of major problems. It's also questionable if the Soviet Union should still be around and if North Korea should be as advanced in this timeline as it appears to be. 

Other problems are perhaps a bit too pedantic. This season mostly takes place in 1995, a full twenty-six years after Season 1, but very little effort has been made to make any of the characters look their age. Joel Kinnaman and Shantel VanSanten look amazing for playing people well into their sixties, whilst Nate Corddry is given some very unconvincing aging makeup (made worse by him having much better aging make up over on Amazon's excellent Paper Girls). It's one of those things you can forget about in a show that's otherwise firing on all cylinders, but here it accentuates the feeling of the wheels coming off the wagon whilst it's rolling downhill.

There are still flashes of greatness. The actors do their solid best with increasingly risible material and newcomer Lev Gorn has a great arc as the Soviet mission commander Grigory Kuznetsov, a hard-wired martinet who cracks (just slightly) to become an effective partner to Danielle Poole on the Mars mission. The political storyline revolving around Ellen Wilson (Jodi Balfour) becoming the first female President of the United States and facing a crisis when her sexuality (and her efforts to hide it) comes to the fore has a lot of legs to it, but is undercooked (and I'm not sure her resolution would really save her career). The show's energy and momentum lifts whenever Sonya Walger returns as Molly Cobb, making it a shame she's is so little of the season. Robert Bailey Jr. has a great subplot as Will Tyler, NASA's first openly gay astronaut, but again this is a story that's shunted to one side with almost indecent haste. There's also some excellent vfx, if not as flawlessly brilliant as in the first two seasons. 

For All Mankind's third season (**½, but ****½ for Polaris and Happy Valley) has some individually great episodes, especially early on, and some great performances, effects and ideas. But it also has some agonisingly painful dumbness in its worldbuilding, its plotting and its characterisation that drags what was one a fantastic show down to mediocrity. The finale does resolve some of the stupider storylines, hopefully permanently, and we can hope that the already-commissioned Season 4 will be a return to form. The season is streaming worldwide right now on Apple TV+.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

FOR ALL MANKIND renewed for a fourth season

Apple+'s alternate history SF series For All Mankind has been renewed for a fourth season.

The series is based on the premise that the Russians beat the Americans to the Moon in 1969, triggering a far more intense space race than in reality, with the two countries racing to get the first space station in orbit and the first permanently-settled lunar base. The currently-airing third season takes the show into the mid-1990s, with the still-extant Soviet Union and United States competing to be the first to reach Mars, and having to content with surprise competition from a private space company.

The show is executive produced by Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi and stars (among many others) Joel Kinnaman, Shantel VanSanten, Jodi Balfour, Sonya Walger and Krys Marshall.

Season 4 will move the timeline into the 2000s. It's unclear what the story will be, but a likely focus is establishing the first permanent Mars colony and maybe even extending manned spaceflight to the moons of Jupiter.

FOR ALL MANKIND to return on 10 June

Apple TV+ has confirmed that the third season of For All Mankind will debut on 10 June this year.

The first two seasons of For All Mankind were excellent television. Set in an alternate timeline where the Soviet Union beats the USA to the moon in 1969, the USA responds with a Space Race that is far more ambitious than in reality. By the 1980s (the setting for the second season) both the USA and Soviet Union have bases on the moon and are ploughing ahead with advanced spacecraft programmes that they will hope take them to Mars. Season 3 will primarily take place in 1995, by which time humanity has indeed reached the Red Planet. It is unclear what other changes to the timeline have taken place by this point.

Mythic Quest: Season 2

The first major expansion for Mythic Quest has been a huge success, but now the game studio's backers are keen for more content. Ian and Poppy are bereft of ideas, so brainstorm ideas, concepts and even titles for the new expansion, whilst also trying to keep the team's morale up as the competition gets fierce.

The first season of Mythic Quest was a solid success, a funny workplace comedy that used the field of video game development to tell amusing stories about human eccentricities. It did ascend to absolute greatness twice, with the episode A Dark Quiet Death telling a self-contained flashback story with a completely different tone to the rest of the season, and Quarantine using the COVID19 pandemic to tell a surprisingly powerful story about loss, loneliness and self-reliance.

The second season surprisingly repeats the feat. The "normal" episodes of the season once again focus on workplace foibles, character clashes and people struggling with relationships, job ambitions and family issues. The fact they are dealing with these problems whilst working at a video game company gives the show its own unique feel. There is greater character depth this time around, with stories such as the exasperated Ian mentoring game tester Rachel to find out what she really wants to do with her career, whilst Poppy and Ian's competing ideas for a second expansion are cleverly used to show their ongoing struggles with art versus commercial practicality. There's also a nice exploration of Poppy's character as she moves from a technical role to a leadership one, and struggles with that move.

Once again, the show throws an out-of-format curveball that ends up being brilliant, this time in the form of a two-parter. The first part, Backstory, is set entirely in the 1970s and sees the young Carl "C.W." Longbottom struggling to become a science fiction writer. The episode is another brilliantly-written stand-alone, with guest appearances by SF authors like Ursula K. Le Guin, Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury (all played by actors, natch) and a somewhat maudlin ending. The second half, Peter, set in the present day, sees the older C.W. trying to reconnect with some of the people from that time period and making an awful job of it. Particularly admirable is the way the two-parter avoids the cliche of C.W. "growing and learning" or becoming a better person or confessing the rather horrendous secret he's been carrying around for so long. Instead the show has the confidence to let C.W.'s actions speak for themselves.

The season rounds off with an unexpected, but logically-set-up, finale. It surprisingly feels more like a series finale than a season cliffhanger, with almost every character in motion, being fired, getting a new role, being promoted, or even being arrested.

The second season of Mythic Quest (****½), like the first, is well-written, well-acted and does some very good character work, except all better than the first season. The out-of-format sixth and seventh episodes are once again even stronger (*****), delivering exceptional performances and real pathos. The second season of Mythic Quest is streaming worldwide now on Apple TV+. A third and fourth season have been commissioned.

Foundation: Season 1

More than twenty thousand years in the future, known space has been united under the rule of the Galactic Empire. The Empire has provided stability and peace for twelve millennia, the last four centuries of which have been under the rule of the Genetic Triumvirate of the Cleon Dynasty. The three emperors are enraged when respected mathematician Hari Seldon announces the discovery of psychohistory, a mathematical and statistical modelling which allows the prediction of future events. Seldon predicts nothing less than the collapse of the Empire, plunging humanity into a period of barbarism he expects to last thirty thousand years.

However, Seldon also offers a slither of hope: by creating a repository of knowledge and data, a Foundation for future reconstruction, the period of barbarism may be reduced to a single millennia. The three emperors, disturbed when Seldon's model successfully predicts a devastating terror attack on the capital world of Trantor, allow Seldon and his followers to settle on the remote world of Terminus to build the Foundation. Decades later, Seldon's followers are living a tough life on a brutal and unforgiving world when they find themselves drawn into a conflict with the neighbouring power of Anacreon, which desires nothing less than the annihilation of the Empire...and they want the Foundation's help, willingly or unwillingly, to achieve it.

Isaac Asimov's Foundation saga was, for many years, regarded as one of the untouchable taproot texts of 20th Century science fiction. Originally published as eight short stories and novellas in the 1940s, Asimov combined them with a new story in the early 1950s as three collected "fixup" novels, the infamous Foundation Trilogy. Its tale of plucky scientists and cunning engineers outwitting warlords and generals struck a chord, winning the trilogy a special Hugo Award for Best Series in 1964 (defeating J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings along the way). After resisting the notion for many years, Asimov was convinced to return to the universe in the 1980s, penning two further sequel novels. After getting hopelessly stuck after introducing a new idea from way off left-field in those books, he went back to write two prequel novels, the last of which was published just before his death in 1992. These later sequels and prequels did not add much to the appeal of the series, being more concerned with dragging most of Asimov's work into a single "future history" of humanity than in telling a good story.

The first problem facing anyone who wants to adapt the Foundation series is therefore Asimov's own lack of coherence and consistency with the original work. Asimov only ever covered the first half of the Foundation's existence, leaving the chronologically-final novel, Foundation and Earth, with a lot of unresolved story arcs. Asimov's novels are also primarily concerned about people sitting in rooms talking, or sometimes standing in rooms talking, or sometimes sitting on a spaceship talking. Action is brief, occasional and underwhelming, with major and epic events alluded to off-page. Asimov's cast is also predominantly male with female characters playing only minor roles until the last couple of books (and even then not doing very much, at least with their clothes on). Combined with the stories in the opening trilogy being largely disconnected from one another, with many decades falling between each one, with no continuing characters beyond Seldon's holographic image, it makes turning them into a TV show problematic.

David Goyer's attempt to tackle the problem starts promisingly, focusing on the minor side-character of Gaal Dornick who is promoted here into a leading player. Played with grace and skill by newcomer Lou Llobell, Dornick is a psychohistory sceptic and mathematical genius whom Seldon - a headlining turn by actor-of-the-moment Jared Harris - recruits to help keep his project alive when the Empire tries to tear it down. The first episode, which is the most faithful to the books whilst also featuring massive changes, sets up an intriguing universe and story with a lot of promise and some absolutely brain-melting visual imagery. The spacecraft and hardware (mostly rendered through models rather than CG) feel like a vintage 1980s SF cover come to life, whilst the collapse of the Starbridge is one of the most impressive vfx set pieces put on television. It also helps that our antagonist for the episode is Emperor Cleon, or rather the three clones of the Emperor Cleon, with Brother Day (Lee Pace) and Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann) debating executing Seldon or indulging him.

Despite the major changes to the source material, the episode works in setting up the universe and retaining viewer interest. However, things quickly become divisive after this point. The storyline abruptly jumps forward fifty years to Terminus, where Warden Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey) takes over as the main character. Terminus is barely-habitable rock, superbly realised through atmospheric location filming in volcanic regions of the Canary Islands. However, the story of events on Terminus is thin, and when the Anacreons show up to snarl about honour and vengeance like budget Klingons, you can feel you're watching a less-successful mid-season filler episode of Star Trek from around 1994. Harvey does her best, but saddled with some ripe lines and a poor American accent, it makes her a decidedly less interesting protagonist. Dornick does show up again in a self-contained side-plot, but doesn't really have a lot to do. The Foundation storyline ends up being the weakest element in a TV show called Foundation, which is a bit of a problem.

Fortunately, a wholly-new story has been invented which takes us into the Genetic Dynasty, with Brothers Dusk, Day and the young Dawn (Cassian Bilton) trying to rule over an empire from which they are almost completely separated by class, security and location. This storyline, which also features excellent performances by Laura Birn as the Emperor's right-hand robot, Eto Demerzel and Amy Tyger as a gardener, Azura Odili, is quite interesting and asks big-picture SF questions about cloning, consciousness, power and ethics. Despite being invented out of wholecloth, it's frequently intriguing and becomes moreso when Brother Day departs for the moon known as the Maiden to win the support of the Luminist faith for his policies. On Maiden, the Emperor has to face unique personal challenges and a formidable political opponent, Zephyr Halima (an excellent performance by T'Nia Miller).

This storyline works because it hinges on Lee Pace's superb performance (albeit one that falls squarely within the centre of his range). Pace has become a reliable performer for intense, charismatic roles requiring a degree of intelligence (see also his Thranduil in the Hobbit trilogy, Joe MacMillan in Halt and Catch Fire and Ronan the Accuser in Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel). Pace quickly becomes the show's most vital player, given that Jared Harris's heavily-trailed role in the series was somewhat...overstated: Hari Seldon is a low-key presence, and doesn't appear in many episodes.

If the Genetic Dynasty and the internal politics of the Empire were the main draw of Foundation, the show would have ended up being pretty solid. However, Foundation goes off-track whenever it tries to actually tackle the storyline involving the Foundation, at which point it veers from its semi-successful goal of being "Game of Thrones in space" to being a very generic action story without many compelling characters. This leaves the show feeling unbalanced, verging on the schizophrenic. Gaal Dornick's story is also potentially intriguing, but far too static, with the story going out of its way to prevent the character from interacting with the other plotlines until the very end but not giving her much to do in the meantime that's worthwhile.

Foundation's first season (***) is very strangely structured and paced. The storylines involving Trantor, the Emperors, the Starbridge and the Maiden are all very solid, verging on the good, but everything on Terminus involving the Anacreons and the Foundations is tedious. The cast is mostly solid, with Lee Pace, Terrance Mann and Jared Harris (in his fleeting appearances) excelling and Lou Llobell giving a great performance, but some of them are much better-served by the material than others. A second season has been commissioned, and will reportedly adapt the much more dynamic storyline from Foundation and Empire about Imperial General Bel Riose militarily confronting the Foundation, which could make for a much stronger narrative. But in its first season, Foundation squanders a lot of its Trantor-set promise on a badly-thought out, generic action story that goes nowhere. The show needs much more consistency if it's to become must-see TV. Right now, it's more "meh, check it out if you're not doing anything else or need some really awesome new desktop backgrounds."

Foundation is available to watch on Apple TV+ worldwide.

Mythic Quest: Season 1

Mythic Quest is one of the world's most popular massively multiplayer online roleplaying games, with a dedicated player base. However, its creators are dysfunctional and argumentative, with the desires of creative director Ian Grimm, lead engineer Poppy Li, head writer C.W. Longbottom (who won a Nebula Award in 1973) and head of monetisation Brad Bakshi frequently clashing. With a fickle fanbase to keep addicted (and paying), the company has to go all-out with the game's first major expansion, Raven's Banquet, to keep the game and the studio afloat.

You may be thinking that if there's one thing the world doesn't need more of, it's workplace comedies. But whilst workplace comedies are a dime a dozen, the well-executed, memorable workplace comedy is a rarity. The Office and Parks & Recreation are the standard-bearers for the field, and Mythic Quest surprisingly quickly measures up, if not exceeds those standards (since the first seasons for both shows, at least the US version of The Office, were spotty).

The show's writing talent is seasoned and honed from many years spent working on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, although Mythic Quest has a completely different tone and feel. The cast is also outstanding, with It's Always Sunny's Rob McElhenney leading the way as Ian (pronounced "eye-an") Grimm, the egotistical creative director who fails to realise he's subordinate to David Brittlesbee (David Hornsby, also from It's Always Sunny), the game's unassertive and ineffective executive producer to likes to overshare his cripplingly embarrassing life failures. Charlotte Nicdao (A gURLs wURLd) plays neurotic lead engineer Poppy, who wants to keep a purity of vision of the game as a place for creativity and artistry. This leads her into frequent conflicts with Brad, played by Danny Pudi (Community) playing completely against type as a profit-obsessed monster. Jessie Ennis plays newcomer Jo, David's new assistant who has distressingly psychopathic tendencies, with veteran Oscar-winner F. Murray Abraham (Amadeus) playing C.W. Longbottom, an old-skool science fiction writer about thirty years past his best but has experienced a career rejuvenation from working on the game. Rounding out the regular cast are Imani Hakim (Everybody Hates Chris) as Dana and veteran video game voice actress (and show writer) Ashly Burch as Rachel, the game testers with a simmering romantic attraction to each other who won't do anything about it (to the frustration of the rest of the office).

Mythic Quest makes good use of its formidable writing and acting talent to tell stories about and within the video game industry that feel timely and relevant. The issues of crunch and burnout are raised, and the industry's issues with diversity and representation form plot points in several episodes. The fact that the series is co-produced and has most of its ingame footage provided by Ubisoft, who've had a lot of their own issues in these areas recently, is somewhat ironic. The fundamental problems behind the scenes on video games where the artistic, technical and financial goals are not in alignment are also used to provide tension, and laughs.

For the most part, Mythic Quest's first season works well as a funny workplace comedy, using its subject matter to differentiate itself from other shows. However, for its fifth episode the show throws out a ball that is less curved than totally bent. A Dark Quiet Death is a 40-minute standalone film which starts in the early 1990s when action game designer Doc (Jake Johnson) and moody writer Bean (Cristin Milioti) meet and fall in love. They co-produce an artistic game based around the futility of life which becomes an unlikely smash hit. However, their financiers quickly put pressure on them to make sequels with increasingly greater levels of violence, guns and explosions, to Bean's growing resentment and anger. The episode breaks down and encapsulates the wider themes of the series into a stand-alone story almost entirely lacking in comedy in favour of drama and tragedy. It's a mini-masterpiece of an episode that stands not just above the rest of the season, but most other shows as well.

This decision to do "out-of-format" specials would be repeated at the end of the season when the COVID pandemic curtailed plans for an early start to Season 2. Instead, two specials were produced. The second, acting as a season-bridging interstitial, is fine but the first of these two specials is outstanding. Shot entirely on Zoom and in actors' houses, it's funny and a little tragic at the same time, and takes clever advantage of the format and keeping the characters apart to tell us more about them. Lots of shows did "quarantine specials," including some that had been off-air for years (like Parks & Recreation) and they were mostly fine, but Mythic Quest's is probably the best for how it uses the format to develop the ongoing storyline and character arcs. The end-of-episode Zoom gag is also outstanding.

The first season of Mythic Quest (****) is funny, well-acted, well-written and entertaining, whilst also using its format to explore the video game industry from several angles (including development, the interaction with streamers and player feedback). But it's the out-of-format specials in episodes 5 and 10 (both *****) which show a willing to experiment and tell unusual stories that are the real winners, a feat that the show will match in the second year.

The first season of Mythic Quest is streaming worldwide now on Apple TV+. A second season is also available, and the show as recently renewed for two more seasons, the first of which will air in 2022.

Ted Lasso: Season 1

Ted Lasso is an experienced American college football coach who is unexpectedly hired by the new owner of British football team FC Richmond, Rebecca Welton, to run the club after she inherits it from her ex-husband in a divorce settlement. Lasso's inexperience with football - or soccer - is initially a handicap, but his empathetic nature soon wins over most of the team and Rebecca. But Lasso's folksy advice and tactical instincts fail to win over star player Jamie Tartt, who eschews team play in favour of making himself the centre of attention, and sets about undermining Lasso's plans.

A bunch of cynical Brits are going through a tough time during their lives and careers. Many of them are in hard places, contemplating divorce, business failure or irrelevance. Suddenly, a folksy American shows up and via homespun wisdom, pithy sayings and the power of belief, these hard hearts are melted and all is well in the world.

Sounds horrible, doesn't it? Fortunately, Ted Lasso isn't that show, but it sounds so close to it that many potential viewers may have been put off (being on the smallest and newest of the global streaming services doesn't help either). Strong word of mouth and, now, eight Emmy Awards, may convince the doubters to tune in, because Ted Lasso is a show that threads the needle of being warm-hearted and positive without turning into a saccharine overdose, though it walks the line mighty fine.

The show is helped by a warm and winning central performance by Jason Sudeikis (Horrible Bosses) as the eponymous Lasso. Lasso would be an insufferable character if Sudeikis didn't imbue him with such wit and charm, not to mention playing the character's more troubled side. Lasso's relentless positivity and work ethic seems to have helped tank his own marriage, and his apparent inability to fix his own problems whilst having a good handle on everyone else's issues is causing him tension and anxiety, adding an interesting edge to the character.

The rest of the main cast is likewise excellent, particularly Hannah Waddingham (Game of Thrones) as quasi-antagonist Rebecca, Jeremy Swift (Downton Abbey) as Leslie and the spectacularly sweary Brett Goldstein (who also writes for the show) as former superstar player Roy Kent. Goldstein is arguably the breakout find of the show, notable for his Roy Keane-influenced hardman image clashing with a much softer side he tries to hide from people. Phil Dunster is just the right note of insufferable as the handsome and formidably talented Jamie Tartt, whose combative nature makes him a secondary antagonist for much of the season. Rounding out the main cast is Brendan Hunt as the taciturn Coach Beard; Nick Mohammed as Nate, a kitman turned sharp-tongued assistant coach; and Juno Temple as Jamie's girlfriend Keeley, whose initial, typical WAG image hides a much smarter, resourceful and tougher character. The show also has a formidable supporting cast, including the rest of the football team (featuring notable breakout performances by Toheeb Jimoh as Sam, Kola Bokinni as Isaac and Cristo Fernandez as Dani "Football is Life" Rojas) and the mighty Tony Head (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Rupert, Rebecca's ex-husband-turned-nemesis. Frankly any show which has Tony Head being an insufferable, rage-inducing prat is automatically worth watching in my book.

The show walks a very fine tightrope between Mister Rogers' Neighborhood-style folksy charm and a more cynical view of human nature. The show does lean heavily into feel-good stories which occasionally threaten to overload the audience's patience, but it shows remarkable judgement in knowing when it's going too "nice" and instead pulls back with some more cynical humour or deals the team a well-judged reversal of fortune. The team also has highs and lows through the season which feel surprisingly familiar for an English football team, with good spells suddenly ended when they come up against a far superior team. Ted Lasso is not by any means a realistic depiction of life in a Premier League team, but it does get the football right better than any show before it. Given football's status as the world's most popular sport, it's startling how few shows - drama or comedy - have really tried to engage with it previously, and there's a hint of annoying in British reviews of the series that it took an American creator (albeit with a partially British writing team) to finally crack it.

The first season of Ted Lasso (****½) cracks along with great pacing and just enough charm to overcome its cheesier moments, whilst hinting at greater character depth. Overrated? Somewhat. Some of the story turns are a bit implausible, even in the show's own warm-hearted reality, and some of the characters like Sam and Dani, despite outstanding performances, veer towards stereotypes. Jamie's abrupt mid-season departure also feels random, though it is explored a bit better in the second season. Overall, a solid, amusing show with a great cast. The series is available now on Apple TV+ worldwide.

Apple renews FOUNDATION for a second season

Apple TV has renewed its epic space opera series Foundation for a second season.

The show, an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels, is currently halfway through airing its first season on streaming service Apple TV+. Despite a mixed critical reception, the show has apparently picked up an impressive number of viewers, part of a boom in the success of the service alongside its hit football comedy show Ted Lasso (which just concluded its second season and has begun work on a third).

The show's first season adapts storylines from the first novel in the series, Foundation (1951), alongside some elements from prequel novels Prelude to Foundation (1989) and Forward the Foundation (1992). The second season will round off material from Foundation and will start drawing on the second book in the series, Foundation and Empire (1952), including the rise to power of master trader Hober Mallow and the depiction of the conflict between the Foundation and imperial general Bel Riose. It's likely that the series' most famous storyline, the conflict between the Foundation and the genetic mutant known as the Mule, will follow in a potential third season.

Foundation is currently releasing new episodes every Friday worldwide on Apple TV+.

For All Mankind: Season 2

1983. NASA is running away with the Space Race. It has a permanently-manned lunar outpost, Jamestown, and an entire fleet of space shuttles to service installations in orbit. It is already developing a second-generation, nuclear-powered shuttle called Pathfinder and has its eyes set firmly on Mars. However, mixed support in Congress threatens to derail its Martian ambitions and escalating tensions with the Soviet Union, including armed confrontations over contested lithium mining sites on the moon, put the safety of the entire world in doubt. The astronauts of NASA and their families find themselves on the front line of what could be the start of World War III, or the beginning of a new, peaceful age of cooperation.

For All Mankind's journey through an alternate history of the 20th and 21st centuries continues in the second of seven planned seasons (a third has already wrapped filming and should air in 2022). A ten-year time jump between seasons brings us almost to a Utopian view of the 1980s, where technology is more advanced than it really was thanks to the advances of America's hyper-charged space programme. Electric cars are becoming commonplace, the Columbia-class space shuttle has already been in service for years, and a combination of extremely lucrative patents and the heartfelt support of President Reagan means NASA has funds and resources it couldn't even dream of in reality. It's a giddy view of the Space Race which masks deeper problems.

As in reality, the growing gulf in technology and capability between the rapidly-advancing United States and the stagnating Soviet Union is creating renewed, dangerous tensions on Earth, in orbit and on the moon. The US military is getting more and more involved with the space programme, advocating putting weapons on shuttles and on the moon, and using the "high ground" of orbital space to overcome the USSR's ability to launch a nuclear first strike or respond in kind to one. Like Battlestar Galactica before it, For All Mankind dips into an interesting place where the military, ethical, scientific and political ramifications of events overlap, throwing up thorny dilemmas where each perspective makes valid points so it's hard to entirely come down on one side or another. For All Mankind also introduces more Russian characters and has the USA making some horrendous misjudgements, meaning the Soviet perspective is also more readily understood.

As with the first year, For All Mankind roots the fascination of its alternate history (where John Lennon survived his assassination attempt, but Pope John Paul II did not) in compelling character arcs. Our primary POV characters are once again the Baldwin family, astronaut Ed now working as the head of the astronaut programme at NASA and his wife Karen having taken over the Outpost, the old astronaut drinking ground which has now become a tourist trap. Recovering from their death of their son Shane in the first season, they have adopted a Vietnamese orphan, Kelly. During the season Ed makes the decision to return to space and Kelly decides to apply to join the US Navy and find her birth parents, all decisions which stress out Karen, leading her to make some questionable choices.

A second major story arc follows the ongoing issues of the family Stevens. Gordo has left front-line space service after his mini-breakdown in Season 1, and now works as a public speaker and in the back office. An opportunity to return to Jamestown forces him to confront his demons. His now ex-wife Tracy has become the public face of the space programme, to the consternation of fellow astronauts who think she's putting more effort into appearing on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show than on her actual job. Their sons have taken dramatically differing career paths, one living at home with his father and the other joining the US military.

Further storylines follow retiring astronaut Ellen, who takes over as a senior administrator at NASA and quickly wins the admiration and wholehearted political support of President Reagan and the Republican Party, to her consternation as a closeted lesbian. However, she also believes her growing political profile will help get NASA and humanity to Mars. Margo continues in her role as a senior NASA figure, but her loneliness leads her to making some potentially dangerous decisions. Subplots follow Aleida, the young girl dreaming of the stars in the first season, as she joins NASA as an engineer; Molly Cobb's health after she ill-advisedly sustains a massive dose of radiation during a solar storm; and a Russian cosmonaut trying to defect to the United States via their moonbase.

The second season is more serialised than the first, which at times felt almost like an anthology series as it spanned four years and various topics including the recruitment of female astronauts, the intersection of civil rights and the space programme, and the psychological impact of space travel. The second season is instead focused around a pivotal period of a few months. This is good in that the season feels more of a piece and more epic, but it also strains the show's ability to give everyone a compelling story arc. In particular, Karen feels a little lost in the mix and Aleida's thread starts and stops a lot, in contrast to the much meatier and more satisfying storyline for the Stevens, Ed and the crew of Jamestown.

The series also feels like it's lost its scientific credentials, or at least strained them. In real life, the space shuttle could not fly to the moon and certainly couldn't land after returning (the shuttle would not survive re-entry at the speeds reached on lunar return mission). Given there's only a couple of shots of the shuttle flying to the moon and other spacecraft are available (including upgraded Apollos and the spectacular Sea Dragon seen in the Season 1 finale and throughout Season 2), it's odd why they insist on depicting it as a lunar return vehicle.

Season 2 also deals with the realities of characters ageing by...not bothering to depict them. The characters were already older than the actors playing them by some years in Season 1, so extending that by another decade in Season 2 with no effort to make up the actors is sometimes distractingly weird (with a 35-year-old actress playing a 53-year old character supposedly having an affair with a 20-ish-year-old played by an actor in his mid-twenties, making that storyline not land at all the way it was supposed to). It's only a few cases of child actors being swapped out for newcomers where it feels that any time has passed at all. I'm assuming that for Season 3, which picks up twelve years after the end of Season 2, they'll have no choice but to age up the characters more convincingly.

Season 2 also has a bit of a mid-season dip into melodrama. Kelly looking for her birth parents, the Stevens' marriage woes and Karen's business and personal decisions aren't bad storylines per se, but they feel a bit too soap-opera-ish and divorced from the big-picture storylines elsewhere, in contrast to say Ellen's personal storyline which dovetails superbly into the grander political picture.

Still, if things dip a little in the middle, they pick up momentum towards the end. The final two episodes form a season finale as outrageously good as any other show's in the last decade, packed with human drama, heroism and political brinksmanship, although we could have maybe done without the BSG trope of allies aiming handguns at one another whilst making speeches, and everyone being just fine with that five minutes later. The finale transitions us, via a surprisingly well-judged use of Nirvana, into the 1990s and another shift in geopolitical fortunes which should give us a very interesting third season.

For All Mankind's (****½) second season starts well, dips in the middle, but roars back strong at the end with an outstanding run of episodes that make the wait for Season 3 feel very interminable indeed. The season is available now worldwide on Apple TV.

For All Mankind: Season 1

June, 1969. The world watches with bated breath as the first manned mission to the moon touches down. The mission is a success, and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov makes his name in history as the first human to successfully land on another astronomical body. American President Nixon is utterly furious and extols NASA to greater lengths to catch up to the Soviet Union and overtake it. When the Soviets land a woman on the moon, NASA is forced to dust off the Mercury 13 proposal to send female astronauts into space. When the Soviets begin prospecting for water, the organisation is told to go one better and land the first-ever permanantly-manned base on the surface.

For All Mankind is a counterfactual or alt-history SF story, taking as the point of divergence the premature death of Sergei Korolev in 1966. Korolev was a prime mover in the Soviet space programme and helped push the USSR into putting the first satellite and the first man in space, ahead of the Americans. His death and the resulting infighting to succeed him delayed Soviet plans for their own lunar programme. With him surviving in this alternate timeline, the USA and USSR remain locked in the space programme for many more years, trading "firsts" as they seek to outdo one another.

The idea of an alternate history is intriguing, but the show - spearheaded by Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek: The Next Generation veteran Ronald D. Moore - recognises that that is not enough by itself. The story needs to be rooted in its characters and their lives. The story pursues several story arcs across the first season to this end. In one, Edward Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) strives to overcome his inability to keep his mouth shut and his lack of confidence in being a father to win the manned moonflight mission he craves. His friend and colleague Gordo Stevens (Michael Dorman) enjoys the rock star elements of being a hotshot test pilot and astronaut a little too much, to the despair of his wife Tracy (Sarah Jones), herself a skilled pilot. Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt) is trying to become a NASA flight controller, but is held back by her lack of political acumen and her close association with Saturn V designer Wernher Von Braun (Colm Feore), whose brilliance has helped America get into space but whose Nazi affiliations during WWII continue to undermine public confidence.

Subplots follow the formation of a new training programme for female astronauts, including Molly Cobb (Sonya Walger), Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) and Ellen Wilson (Jodi Baldfour), along with Tracy Stevens. Spanning as it does the late 1960s and early 1970s, the show touches base with the civil rights movement, with Danielle serving as the first African-American trainee astronaut, and lesbian Ellen trying to keep the details of her love life a secret.

The show is exacting in its commitment to real science and technology of the period, including some very clever ideas such as repurposing Skylab into a lunar base module when the President decides they need a moonbase yesterday. The early missions, using the actual Apollo technology of the day, are recreated in impressive detail, with some intriguing variances from the norm: Apollo 11 has such a rough landing (Neil Armstrong picking a different and more difficult landing spot than he did in reality) that later missions are checked over in greater detail, leading to Apollo 13 flying without a hitch. The show's absolute high point in terms of visual effects is the landing of Apollo 15 at the edge of Shackleton Crater in the fifth episode, which is just a jaw-dropping moment.

The first half of the season spans two years and takes in a lot of plot points and ideas, making the most of its long episodes (several top an hour) to tell almost self-contained stories about training, politics and the scientific challenges of space travel, not to mention the danger. In a clever move, although actors play key real NASA figures such as Von Braun and Armstrong, all the footage of politicians use real archival footage, sometimes slightly tweaked with effects, with sound-alike actors giving an air of authenticity to proceedings. This is particularly impressive when Ted Kennedy (who in this timeline misses a certain party because of Senate hearings on the greatly expanded space programme and thus avoids the major scandal that derailed his career) becomes President, since obviously there's no archival footage of him as President to use, so the vfx crew get pretty creative in how they sell that.

The second half of the season focuses onto a period of several months and kicks off with a major catastrophe which destroys a relief mission to the moon, leaving three astronauts stranded at their base without hope of relief in the near future. They struggle to deal with being stuck in close confines with one another, with mental health problems being compounded by evidence that a rival Soviet base is up to no good. This story becomes more epic, with family crises back on Earth and a second relief mission which also runs into trouble, in an Apollo 13-on-steroids kind of way, which requires some ingenious solutions. The shift in gears sees the show come into its own, and become a triumph of modern science fiction screen storytelling.

For All Mankind's first season (****½) is a success, with some outstanding writing, acting and extremely impressive effects (the odd ropy explosion here and there excepted). The show's alternate history is sold so convincingly that it's easy to forget that this never happened, and in real life we may be lucky to get back to the moon this decade, sixty years on. But the show does feel like a vindication of science fiction. The premise is similar to Stephen Baxter's novel Voyage, whilst a lot of it feels like it draws on Arthur C. Clarke's assertion that the Vietnam War would have paid for everything he and Stanley Kubrick depicted on screen in 2001: A Space Odyssey (Vietnam still happens, but ends much earlier in the show's timeline). It's a show that feels simultaneously nostalgic but forwards-thinking, and it always compelling to watch. The show is available worldwide now on Apple+.

Apple TV's FOUNDATION TV series gets airdate and new trailer

Apple TV's Foundation series, based on the novels by Isaac Asimov, now has an airdate. The TV show will debut on 24 September this year.

Set more than twenty thousand years in the future, the Foundation novels depict the fall of the Galactic Empire. After twelve millennia of rule, the Empire has become corrupt, decadent and ripe for collapse, a fact not fully appreciated by its rulers. Mathematician Hari Seldon has created a form of statistical analysis he calls "psychohistory," which can predict the future within remarkable degrees of accuracy. Seldon's discovery predicts the collapse of the Empire and thirty thousand years of barbarity. But Seldon believes the interregnum can be reduced to just one millennia if a repository of lore and scientific knowledge is created: a Foundation for the next era of human existence. Much of the tension in the early part of the story comes from those in the Empire who believe Seldon's predictions and want to help him, and those who believe that Seldon is a liar and doom-monger who is bringing about the very apocalypse he has merely predicted.

Asimov started writing the series as a short story sequence in 1942, collecting the original stories and novellas into three fixup novels: Foundation (1951), Foundation and Empire (1952) and Second Foundation (1953), collectively known as The Foundation Trilogy. The trilogy sold extremely well and became one of the biggest-selling science fiction series of the age, winning a special "Best Series" Hugo Award in 1966. Asimov only returned to the series with Foundation's Edge (1982) after a publisher offered him a staggering sum of money to do so. The story continued in Foundation and Earth (1986), the chronologically-final Foundation novel. It left the story unresolved, but did reveal that the Foundation universe was the same as the Robots universe, creating a much bigger shared universe spanning more than a dozen novels and twenty thousand years of future history. Asimov struggled to come up with a way of continuing the saga before instead choosing to rewrite a prequel duology about Hari Seldon, comprising Prelude to Foundation (1988) and Forward the Foundation (1993). Asimov died in 1992, shortly after completing Forward the Foundation. Other writers continued the Foundation saga in authorised prequels and sequels of varying quality.

Foundation has been hugely influential on later franchises such as Star Trek and Star Wars; the city-planet of Coruscant in the latter is a nod at the city-planet of Trantor in Foundation.

The Foundation TV series stars Jared Harris as Hari Seldon; Lee Pace as Brother Day, the Emperor of the Galaxy; Lou Llobell as Gaal Dornick; Leah Harvey as Salvor Hardin; Laura Birn as Eto Demerzel; Cassian Bilton as Brother Dawn and Terrence Mann as Brother Dusk. The series has been executive produced by David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman and was shot in Limerick, Ireland. The first season will consist of ten episodes. The first season seems to draw on elements in Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation and Foundation, as well as some significant changes to the story (such as the ruling Emperor replacing himself through cloning).

Rebecca Ferguson cast in adaptation of Hugh Howey's WOOL at Apple TV

Rebecca Ferguson has been cast as a lead in the upcoming Apple+ TV adaptation of Hugh Howey's Silo series of post-apocalyptic novels.

Ferguson has starred in The White Queen, The Greatest Showman, Doctor Sleep and The Snowman. She also plays the role of Lady Jessica Atreides in Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune, due to hit cinemas (and maybe home streaming) in October.

Ferguson will play the role of Juliette, an engineer struggling to keep a giant silo operating. The silo is a refuge from the world outside, which has become uninhabitable.

The Silo series consists of Wool (2011-12), Shift (2012-13) and Dust (2013). The first two books were self-published as instalments via Amazon, and later assembled into cohesive novels. There are also accompanying short stories and a graphic novel adaptation. The series has been an international success, with Howey cited as an early success in the Amazon self-publishing programme.

Graham Yost, who has written for Band of Brothers, The Pacific and Sneaky Pete as well as creating Justified, will write and showrun the new series, which is expected to start filming later this year for a 2022 bow on Apple.

Apple release first trailer for its FOUNDATION TV series

Apple TV has released the first trailer for its TV mini-series based on the Foundation novels by Isaac Asimov.

Set more than twenty thousand years in the future, Foundation depicts a Galactic Empire that spans hundreds of thousands of star systems with a population in the trillions. The Empire seems prosperous and strong, but mathematician Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) has used incredibly advanced mathematical models - a science he calls "psychohistory" - to predict that the Empire will collapse in a matter of years, ushering in thirty thousand years of barbarism. This creates a storm of controversy, with some citing Seldon as a panic-monger and others thinking he can help resolve a number of looming crises. Eventually Seldon is allowed to found a secret society known as the Foundation, a scientific elite operating from behind the scenes who can reduce the interregnum to a mere single millennium before a new centralised empire arises.

The seven Foundation novels cover the first five hundred years or so of Seldon's Plans, chronicling how the Foundation avoids destruction and helps guide humanity to the next phase of its existence.

The series also stars Lee Pace as Brother Day, Lou Llobell as Gaal, Leah Harvey as Salvor Hardin, Laura Birn as Eto Demerzel, Terrence Mann as Brother Dusk and Cassian Bilton as Brother Dawn.

The show began production at Troy Studios in Limerick, Ireland, last autumn and seemed to be around halfway through its shoot when production was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Production is expected to resume in the next month or so. Apple has moved ahead with post-production and vfx on the completed episodes, with the hope of finishing work quickly for a 2021 premiere.

Jared Harris to play Hari Seldon in Apple's adaptation of Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION

Apple+'s TV adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation novel series is moving forwards with Chernobyl star Jared Harris in the lead role.

Jared Harris, also late of The Expanse and The Terror, is playing Hari Seldon. Seldon is the mathematician who creates psychohistory, a statistical formulation which allows for a modelling of future events by applying statistics to history. Seldon's idea is dismissed as nonsense except for the fact that one of its predictions is coming true: the Galactic Empire, which has endured for twelve thousand years, is showing signs of imminent collapse. According to Seldon's formula, humanity will be plunged into many millennia of darkness before it rises again. In desperation, a band of scientists and politicians create the Foundation, a body which will guide humanity out of the dark ages in a mere single millennia.

Lee Pace (The Hobbit) is playing Brother Day, the current Emperor of the Galactic Empire. Intriguingly, there is no such emperor during the Foundation novels; the emperor of Hari Seldon's time is Cleon II. This suggests that the adaptation will be a rather light one of the books, given the relative lack of continuing characters in the early volumes.

David Goyer (co-writer of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy) is the showrunner of the project. Production is set to begin soon for a late 2020 or (more likely) early 2021 debut.