GraXXoR

As a child of the seventies and a teen of the eighties, I have to say I dig the early 2000s vibes in this pilot ep. The denim, the close shaved, complete lack of stubble. The slick hair and the girls who somehow (OMG) managed without a metric fk tonne of plastic surgery, lip filler and camper sized ass cheeks.

Even the girl who was supposed to be putting it out there would be considered staid by today's standards.

The show is dated 2009 but it's set in a small town and reminds me of those Halcyon days of yore.

The protagonist is someone I can identify with, someone who gets another chance at reliving his youth...

But this never comes without a price attached.

Almost nineteen years has passed since I first watched this episode. And by the gods it has aged like fine wine..

Although it's more likely that it's me that has aged... I am now a father of two, the eldest who was born the same week this episode aired. And so their focus on the importance of the future is not lost on me.

There was a section during Season 2 where the political allegories were ladled on a little thick, but thankfully they moved back to a more character centric story.

Still, having said that, it's very sad to note that the Populism depicted in this show is even more prevalent today in 2025 than it was in 2006.

No spoilers here. Just a heartfelt gratitude to the writers for creating what feels like a timeless classic piece of speculative sci-fi.

All of the cast were superb and every character was richly written with very few of the typical nonsense decisions that sometimes plague depictions of people in dire straits.

I want to give credit to the special effects team. There was a lot of epic SFX in this episode and there was nothing to complain about watching this on a high definition screen. The SFX has held up just as well as the storyline and politcs.

And there is one section in particular where the action and SFX is done so well that I practically jumped out of my chair, slapped my fist in my palm and whooped like an plain idiot at the screen.... (thankfully I watched this alone, so no shame there...)

This is a 10 out of 10... TV does not get much better than this.

Magnificent.

I had read over 200 of Asimov's short stories novellas and novels as a kid of the 70s and early 80s and they formed the core mythos of how I perceived the distant future would become. Not exactly a dystopia and not the utopic Star Trek to be sure but at least a future where science and technology would be respected and relied upon to deliver the ... ahem.. foundations on which all society should rely.

So when this long considered unfilmable series was aired, I watched with much trepidation and bating of breath.

And ngl the first season raised my hackles somewhat... The stupid, stupid decisions of people in power and the predictable, pedestrian plot and cliche layered upon cliche actually made me quit my Apple TV+ subscription, I sh!t you not! Seriously. What were they playing at.

But when Severance S2 released I was forced to renew my Apple TV+ sub and in the days between Severance episode releases I figured I'd rewatch Foundation from S1E01

Yeah, S1 sucked as much as I remembered but having heard whispers on the grapevine that S2 was a marked improvement, I grinned and bared it.

Lee Price and Jared Harris were the frame upon which the entire show was allowed to shine... Wow. It's like they just said fk it to all the risks they DIDN'T take in S1 and pushed the whole show into deep water.

Gone were the Mary Sue interpretations of Gaal and Salvor and they were replaced with a nuanced and sympathetic roles...

Moreover the so called "comic relief" aspect turned out to be as poignant as the the rest of the show.

For me, the key was that every character was human (even the robot) and given a believable motivation and and premise that one could rally behind and feel real sympathy for.

Moreover, the IQ of the characters and plot in S2 suddenly returned to 3 digits signifying a showrunner that has gained confidence.

Let's hope Foundation outlives the original Trilogy and pushes into the whole ASIMOVERSE!!!