cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/823506
Discussion thread for Foundation season 2 episode 2: “A Glimpse of Darkness”
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Sigh, starting to lose my grace period for this series, Lee and Jared aren’t able to keep this above it’s bad writing.
It’s like they’re trying to throw all the threads at once, but none of it makes sense, in a way it makes even less sense if you’ve read the books.
Finish 1 single thread, it’s been 12 episodes and they haven’t come close, they just keep promising more, and the show makes less and less sense each episode, that’s 12 hours of edging with 0 satisfaction.
Well I don’t think the first season knew what it was doing. So i would discount it. So far these two episodes have established, finally, the general arc of foundation, even getting ahead of things as far as the books are concerned.
One thing I think the show is dropping the ball on is getting the audience to understand psychohistory and connect it to the dynamics of the story. Like the effect Gaal is having (with I’ve decided I like) makes sense and is consistent with the book but I don’t think it’s clear to or even felt by the audience.
I gave them the whole s1 for free, this is a hard bit of work, s1 is just runway, via con dios.
But this is actually almost getting worse, we’ve spent half the time on f*ing synnax of all places, the most boring planet in the galaxy that doesn’t even have people on it.
I agree on PH, but they seem to be taking a whole different view on PH, not it being a statistical predictive method, but it being a cover for telepathy and seeing through time, which if you read some of Asimov’s later foundation works, kind of fits, but was considered a bad idea because it made everything messy.
I think there’s 1 major twist coming, and if it comes out this season, with Demerzel, all this has payoff, but wow this is slow. And bringing The Mule in this early? We didn’t need that new plot thread yet, especially since it’s such a massive hammer, they’re bringing in the whole end of the main book series into s2 before they’ve managed to get the beginning sorted, before Empire is even starting to fall.
Gaal bothers me because she’s Rey, the magic pixie girl who solves everything somehow, only we really haven’t seen her do much expect that 2 minute scene figuring out navigation on the Raven. Salvor is more interesting, but everybody seems to be running off to places based on hunches without a reason.
Mostly I’m furious because traveling without ftl takes forever, so everytime they decide they need to go to synnax for no reason, 100 years go by… I just finally started feeling comfortable in the 1st crisis time period, now they’re all gone (except Poly).
Maybe it gets better, but I had so much hope on this one, it’s Apple and it’s a series that has potential, but the first 2 episodes were heart-breaking so far.
I have the same thoughts about Gaal v Salvor. Which bothers me because I like the idea of Gaal or the mechanic of a “mutant” disturbing things so early but from someone within Hari’s circle.
Haven’t read the later foundation books so I can’t comment on the PH stuff, but given the emphasis on math I feel like they’re leaning into it as a statistical thing that can be disturbed by perturbations like Gaal. Except they haven’t made it clear at all that that’s what is happening. I don’t know what non-book-readers think is going on with all that. And as a book reader I’d prefer they make it feel more momentous and significant.
I personally liked seeing the mule, albeit as a glimpse of the future. Feels like it’s finally getting things going. But again, if it were clearer that there are mutations etc messing the plan up, it could have been more impactful that there’s a mutant with malicious intent. It also felt like they rushed the introduction and could have done way more at building the character up.
Yea hopefully the demerzel thing lands. Otherwise I’m generally pleased with their depiction of the downfall so far, giving us a glimpse of power crumbling at a personal level with ongoing actors through the cloning thing.
Overall I’ve come to the point where I appreciate enough of the ideas of the adaptation but remain unimpressed with the execution at a directorial and writing level.
I personally liked seeing the mule, albeit as a glimpse of the future. Feels like it’s finally getting things going. But again, if it were clearer that there are mutations etc messing the plan up, it could have been more impactful that there’s a mutant with malicious intent. It also felt like they rushed the introduction and could have done way more at building the character up.
I like the thought of it, I just think it’s way too early, I really feel like we have barely begun to set up the foundation in the first place, they spent very little time explaining where terminus is right now, it’s some weird cross between military camp, religious evangelicals, mega-corporations and just really it’s all over the place. I would have loved 1 episode of terminus pre-crisis giving a backdrop, then end it with empire as a threat on the horizon.
I want a few clearer plot threads, this is a mishmash of the whole series with no clarity.
I agree completely on liking the ideas of the adaptation, I had so much hope last season, but omg it is so unclear on where it is and where it’s going. Also the weird personal dramas seem to be trying to disrupt the arc, which is the opposite of how Asimov wrote, his characters were almost 1 dimensional but they always served the plot, almost as caricatures.
Btw in the later books, Raych had a daughter who was the mutant, exactly like Gaal in fact, they mismashed that character too, which is fine in theory but it came out as a complete disaster here. That is one place where the books made more sense, Gaal is probably the worst character in the series, because it seems like she’s trying to be a combination math genius, jesus/jedi character who changes everything but acts like shes almost a child half the time. I’d like to see her do something decisively and with purpose, everything she does she claims she’s doing on instinct and none of it makes sense even to her. I get the clairvoyant bit, but this is just weird and unsettling, it’s like someone randomly jumps off a bridge while saying “I don’t know why!!!” It is the ultimate in withholding agency from your characters.
edit: I get it now, what they needed to do was write this whole thing, but without Gaal in it, like the characters are chasing her to untangle the mystery of the second foundation, and they only see her in glimpses from the past. It’s the only way to make that character work, because seeing her in action just makes her a big floppy mess. You can’t have a magical clairvoyant god-character who seems to be having a breakdown every 5 seconds and acting with no reason that everybody follows without question, that’s just weird.
As a fan of the books, this series is driving me insane. I watched all of S1 and at the end I was just confused. S2 so far has been worse in a lot of ways.
It’s at best minimally entertaining. Obviously, they have used the books to inspire a completely different story.
