Davis Barch

I found this series deeply disappointing, despite the production values that were lavished on some (but not all) of the settings (Trantor is well done, but Terminus looks a lot like Tatooine and they basically live in quonset huts in a windswept wilderness. Nonsense.) (And the invaders have space ships and blasters but follow a fur-clad (and extremely annoying) "huntress" who carries carries a bow. Again, nonsense.) After the first episode, they've basically thrown Asimov's book in the trash and made up their own story with some of the same character names and settings. And it's not one that makes much sense or hangs together, and its one that has a lot of annoying and irrelevant tangents that only confuse whatever plot line there is. Abandoning Asimov's concepts of psychohistory as a form of statistical mechanics used to predict historical trends for unexplained weird psychic powers and individual heroics makes this show a mockery. The brave warrior types (Salvor Hardin? he was a middle aged politician in the book, a brave and somehow pyschic warrior woman here) say things like "Hari Seldon said that the actions of an individual can affect the fate of the galaxy", the exact and explicit opposite of the point of the books. Further annoyances: mystic religions featuring priestesses in flowing robes making arcane hand movements over sacred flames have absolutely NO PLACE in futuristic science fiction (unless the author accepts the responsibility of explaining what's actually going on, which these authors do not.) These scenes are completely made up and contribute nothing to the story line. And one more thing (I promise this is the last): There really was a character named Demerzel, whom Asimov introduced in his later foundation novels. As readers of his books will be aware, he was none other than R. Daniel Olivaw (who would never be found to be posing as an effete courtier (holding his/her hands in an affected pose, what's that about?) As a robot, he was explicitly bound by the three laws or robotics and would be incapable of carrying out an execution, even if ordered by the emperor. Including an arbitrary and unnecessary detail like that in the story line seems to be explicitly designed to spit in Asimov's face and indicate disdain for his writings (and fans). Hard to take. Maybe the worst part is that the failure of this project on this scale will prevent anyone from attempting it again for at least a few decades.