‘Foundation’ returns with tension and intrigue
KUALA LUMPUR, July 18 — If you were drawn into Apple TV+’s Foundation for the epic scale and glorious visuals, the good news is that it is all still there as the new season begins.
The show is still a marvel to watch in 4K, lush and beautifully rendered to the point that ah, perhaps even Foundation’s original source material writer Isaac Asimov would appreciate this.
One of the more interesting and perhaps tricky conceits of the show, departing from the books, is making the Empire or royal rulers being just one person cloned into three.
Imagine being reborn in a sense but there never being one of you, but two copies of you around at any time of the day .
It’s also an exercise of the mind to ponder the question — is a clone the same person? Can three separate clones really be just one person? What about individuality, choices, character?
Lee Pace as Brother Day or the “adult” ruler continues to chew up the screen as is his wont to do but what he does this time is show the problem with the Empire’s idea of succession and what harm it does not just to the dynasty but perhaps to the clones’ sanity over time.
While the original Cleon I thought cloning would be his ticket to living forever, even if not quite literally, Pace’s Day is, like our modern day billionaires, also obsessed with prolonging his legacy but in a different but almost similar way.
His younger clone Cassian Bilton is also questioning his own place in their triumvirate and that opens the door for possible intrigue, mainly revolving around a certain empress-to-be.
Meanwhile genius Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) has to grapple with not just his own mortality but the coming fall of civilisation that he, the unwitting and reluctant prophet-of-sorts, has seen.
Seldon’s maths had shown him many things but had left him ill-prepared for the betrayal by his protegé Gaal (Lou Llobell).
That’s a particular nuance of the character that I appreciated; for all his genius and intellect Hari Seldon could not predict the caprice of being human.
Hari and Gaal’s contrasting journeys, with similar goals — to save civilisation from the doom they could see but that the Galactic Empire refused to accept, are sadly not quite as riveting as the royal ‘Succession without the inherent hilarity’.
If you greatly enjoyed the first season of Foundation, I think you won’t find the second one wanting especially as there are more interesting tidbits along the way.
My only problem with the show is how long it took for Hari and Gaal’s journeys to prove as engrossing a watch as the clone struggles in the Empire but if you stay with the show, you’ll feel it’s worth it once you get to the end.
You can already start watching the first episode of Foundation’s new season now on Apple TV+ with new episodes updated each week.
