Science Fiction

I'll add my voice to the consensus, ignore the part where it's connected to the books. It's a superficially similar story, but it has neither the purpose, storytelling or even plot points of the books.

What I find the hardest is that despite having a solid plot and concept to follow, the series has very weak story telling. It might be that I'm getting old, but I find the focus is more on eye candy and cool situations than on progressing the story and characters.

It has the feel of filler content to generate ad opportunity, or an illustrated podcast about someone who once read the books but has too much ADHD to be able to retell what they read.

That is also the vibe of much other content on AppleTV, so might be a conscious choice of which I'm not a target demographic. I'll be shouting at clouds about it though, maybe it'll slow climate change while I'm at it.

Season two is a mixed bag. I’m not enjoying it as much as I did season one. Lee Pace is carrying the entire show on his performance. Dude should be able to walk into any part he wants based on his talent here.

This season introduced way too many new characters. I’m having a difficult time caring about any of them. Adding a bunch of magical mumbo jumbo disguised as science is also not helping.

I read binge-read the seven books 20 years ago and was very eager to see the show.

I hated almost everything of the first season, except for the parts that were not in the books (the Cleon clones thing was clever to keep the cast incarnating Empire, the gender changes were welcome). Harris is awfully pompous and haughty. The show was so heavy and serious about himself. I couldn't find any of Asimov's deadpan humor.

The show started to kick in for me in season 2, thanks to Poly and Constant, who finally brought Asimov's dark humor.

I really enjoyed s02e07. The writing was perfect, acid like a good GOT episode.

Firstly, forget the books

Secondly try to convince yourself that two or disparate storylines somehow will combine at some point to become meaningful.

Thirdly for some odd reason I still enjoy it

I think if you ignore its an adaptation, its fine. It murders the source material in many ways. That doesn't bother me much because I think the foundation books told faithfully would have made for a very dry tv series.

The Empire's side is just amazing. The fact that Foundation is basically not a priority for Cleon is great. I would watch a show just about the Empire. The 3 Cleon fight for power, and Trantor diplomatic relationship with other planets.

Foundation stuff is meh. Gaal is horrible. A mathematical genius who is also a ball of emotion is just bad characterization, plus it is pretty misogynistic compared to how they depict Harry.

And they better solve the mysteries they set up, or I'll be really angry with the show. To name a few: How was Harry resurrected, by whom, and why? Why does Cleon 1st have a larger memory bank?

Apple do seem to take some online criticism of their shows onboard. I assume this is why I've seen comments that season 2 of Invasion is remarkably different from Season 1.

For Foundation, things like Gaal's redundant voice-overs are largely gone. There's less of noticeable difference in quality between Trantor and Foundation (in that, for me, the outer planets stories aren't as bad, but the empire stories aren't as good).

I like the new, sweary, bantering, characters, and that Jared Harris is given a bit more to do. That said, I've not read the books, but even I can tell that the the radical things they're doing with the Demerzel character are unlikely to be popular.

I didn't start watching until season 2 was even out, I'm a huge fan of the books and had zero faith they'd be able to do them justice. I just couldn't see how a story spanning tens of thousands of years, with frequent lead character changes, could work for TV.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your view) they've taken an attitude of just changing whatever they want to create a fantastic (imo) scifi show. So yeah, as tiny_parking says, ignore the books (if you've read them). The TV bears only a passing resemblance, in that Hari Seldon / psychohistory is a main feature.

Tbh my biggest gripe... WTF did they do to Daneel Olivaw?! Now he's a murderous psycho sexy fembot. Why. Whyyyyyyy. They could've created the Demerzel character and kept Olivaw as an antagonist for the good guys. One of my favourite characters from all scifi series, reduced to a murderous fembot.

I haven't read the books, though I understand they're almost unfilmable at any kind of reasonable budget and Asimov's character work was kind of beside the point. Sounds like a faithful adaptation would be... inaccessible. There's always a spectrum on these things, but I reckon this skews way more towards Sci-Fantasy space opera than the books did. That's fine as far as it goes, but I do feel sympathy for those readers who dare to hope their beloved property will be the exception. Seems the only thing you can really do is pull an Expanse: write it as pot-boiling space opera to begin with, so your actual sci-fi ideas can be slipped in without scaring the suits too badly.

The show is fine, I guess. Its version of Psychohistory is basically magic; it's a plot device rather than a complex idea to be dug into. The show is more interested in exploring themes of legacy and what it means to be family and what it means when "family" betrays you, alongside of some court intrigue soapiness. There's a healthy dose of prestige-TV's obsession with the "drama of paranoia" that's not badly done, but I admit I'm kind of personally over it. Pointless secrets, poor communication, and obtuse scheming are as key to modern drama as they were to Seinfeld.

Anyway, the Gaal/Salvor/real(er) Harry plotline is still joyless and ponderous and the worst of the three despite being tasked with the heavy lifting of being presented as the "complete" one, but the other new characters actually bring some humanity and occasionally a hint of fun (is that allowed?). Poly, Constant, Hober, Bel, Glawen, Sareth, and Rue are all outshining the S1 cast, though Lee Pace finally gets to have some fun in E7.

I watch it just for the amazing visuals.

I've not read the books so I've got nothing to compare it to, I'm defintely going to go and read them after I've finished season 2 though.

I've been enjoying it, not quite as much as the first season but it's still fun to watch. The whole Empire thing is good, they've made some interesting character choices for Demerzel which I'm not really into, they don't happen in the book though from what I've read.

It's taken a real turn and there are a bunch of new characters in it, I like most of them and it feels like the plot is moving forward swiftly with their scenes. The spacers show up more and are really, really cool. I hope we learn more about them.

I'm thinking it's generally okay but I've not read the books and I'm fairly easy to please though

It's different, s2 started terribly but picked up dramatically, if you can survive the first 3 episodes it's actually pretty good.

Gaal is less completely hatable as an actress and character after the first few episodes of s2, but only because they seem to have tried to tone her down, she was the worst part of s1 also.

They need to be arrested for criminal misuse of Jared Harris, poor guy, but the queen is fun and constance is the somehow stealing the screen from everybody in the best ways.

If only they could somehow kill off Gaal...

But the veteran actors and Emperor plotlines are great while the new actors and Foundation plotline are weak.

This is still true, though I'd say sadly Empire isn't quite as good as it was last time around. It honestly feels like watching two different shows most of the time. If someone ever releases a cut that is just Empire and whatever is needed for that plot line to make sense, then I could recommend it.

I enjoyed Season 1 much more than Season 2 so far. I've never read the books, but I've heard about them. Lee Pace is amazing.

I think it’s pretty good. It had a lot more action than the first season, and a lot more intrige too.

I’d second disregarding any comment hammering on the difference between the books and the series, for the simple reason that having any female character, or any character that persists beyond half a season, already contradicts the books. Who would watch something like that?

I’m not too disturbed by the religious thing: that part is actually in the books. Plus a religious revival around a societal downfall is a well-known trope in science fiction (see eg. A Canticle for Leibowitz).

Also, and it pains me to have to say this, but it’s kinda racist at points: surprisingly often, violent roles are alotted to darker-skinned actors (like when Bel and Glawen landed on Siwenna, or when the Beggar’s Lament landed on Ignis), yet I don’t see any darker-skinned actors playing good guys (why did Ducem Barr have to be white?).