"Foundation," Year Three

Mild spoilers for the first two seasons ahead.

This is probably the best season of "Foundation" because it's the one with the clearest, simplest storylines, and when a lot of long-germinating ideas finally pay off.  Chief among these is the arrival of the Mule (Pilou Asbaek), a man with such strong mental powers, he can take over the minds of whole populations and capture planets with hardly any effort.  He poses a threat to both the Empire and the Foundation, which has grown in size to become a major force in the galaxy.  This heralds the beginning of the Third Crisis, which may require the cooperation of Foundation, Empire, and other forces to defeat.

It's now another 152 years into the future, where the Empire has become significantly diminished, Foundation has become more bureaucratized, and there are several new characters to keep straight.  It helps that some of these are played by familiar faces.  Cherry Jones as Foundation ambassador Felice Quent is part of this season's Empire storyline.  Alexander Siddig is Dr. Ebling Mis, a psychohistorian holding down the fort in New Terminus.  However, the ones we really need to keep an eye on are the dashing Captain Han Pritcher (Brandon P. Bell), and the Trader newlyweds Toran Mallow (Cody Fern) and Bayta (Synnove Karlsen), who get swept up in the chaos caused by the Mule's takeover of the pleasure planet Kalgon.  

Gaal gets plenty to do this year trying to combat the Mule, but as usual the really juicy stuff is happening on Trantor.  Our newest version of Day is a hedonist who has fallen in love with his consort, Song (Yootha Wong-Loi-Sing).  He's largely abandoned his responsibilities to Dawn, who is about to ascend to the Middle Throne, while Dusk is facing his imminent demise.  Everyone has their own agendas, and on top of it all Demerzel is growing increasingly uncertain about her role in preserving the Empire at all costs.  Lee Pace and Laura Birn do excellent work - and Lee Pace getting his Lebowski on is delightful - but the real acting powerhouse this season is Terrence Mann.  Here's a Dusk who is struggling to accept the end of his life and secure his legacy, while everything around him seems to be falling apart.       

The other storylines are very plot and exposition driven, sometimes to the point of being borderline incoherent, and the rest of the cast feels like they're just hanging on for dear life.  Lou Llobell is improving, but still tends to get overshadowed by all her scene partners.  The newcomers are all pretty solid, but there aren't any standouts.  We get very little of Jared Harris this year, but honestly we don't need him when the show's momentum has hit such breakneck speeds.  The last few episodes this season are especially gratifying to watch if you've been waiting for some of these developments since the beginning of the series the way that I have.  There isn't a lot of action in this season, but there is a lot of destruction, and what we do see is precisely deployed to suggest much bigger conflicts and upheavals.  

In short "Foundation" is in classic space opera territory now, and it's quite a thing to behold.  Worlds are clashing, civilizations are falling, and I really want to make an "Attack of the Clones" joke, but there are just too many spoilers involved.  I will caution that "Foundation" is not likely to win over any new viewers with this season if they weren't already on board with the show.  The storytelling remains information dense, and it's prone to ridiculous dei ex machina.  I lost track of several important characters who I didn't remember from previous seasons, and had to look up a few references.  "Foundation" makes no apologies about appealing to a certain kind of science-fiction fan, and that's what I've always enjoyed the most about it.  

Yes, the "Foundation" television series is dumbed down Isaac Asimov, but it's still recognizably Isaac Asimov's work, and thanks to Apple and David Goyer, it's looking more and more likely that we'll be able to see it all the way through to the end.

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