If a journalist writing for Starlog in 1978 were put into suspended animation, woken up, and shown the TV series Foundation, that person would have a hard time believing it exists. With Season 3 of the Apple TV+ series, there will be 30 hours devoted to adapting Isaac Asimov’s first Foundation novel and now, half of the second book, and a bit of the third one, too. While it's mercifully not a slavishly faithful adaptation to the books, the fact that there is this much time and effort spent on such famous novels is truly remarkable. Our hypothetical out-of-time sci-fi journalist from 1978 would also probably ask the following question: “Okay, so this is the most popular sci-fi series on TV now, right?”
The fact that Foundation is not more popular among sci-fi diehards than, say, Black Mirror or Apple’s runaway hit Severance only speaks to the quality of Foundation. The show isn’t challenging for a casual viewer by accident. The difficulty is the point. But with Season 3, Foundation has, perhaps, crafted its most urgent and breezy set of episodes yet. If there are any holdouts on whether or not Foundation is the true Game of Thrones in space, Season 3 will convince you that this epic show deserves an audience bigger than just people clutching their Isaac Asimov paperbacks to their chests.
