Some spoilers for Season 1 of Foundation
With the first season of Apple’s Foundation complete, we can take a step back and think about its impact, or, really, lack thereof. Whilst many Game of Thrones trappings are present - the titillation, the ‘complex’, ‘grey’ characters, the constant movement and intrigue, in totality the package falls flat and evidently failed to spark much of a cultural conversation, outside of a few think-pieces. Why this should be comes down the the pace (pun not intended): often meandering and therefore rarely compelling, except in those moments where ‘Empire’, the Cleonic Dynasty, takes centre stage, the show offers spectacle but frequently treats the intelligence of the book characters as a disposable characteristic. Salvor Hardin, transformed into a butt-kicking ‘warden’, frequently chooses violence in stark contrast to her literary instantiation.
The story arc based on the Foundation itself only gradually builds vigour and energy, until in the final episode (spoilers) Hari Seldon’s ‘ghost’ reappears and instigates an allience between hitherto deadly enemies. Indeed, it isn’t really until the final episode that the season begins to feel like the books at all. This is probably why earlier installments feel so, well, dull. David S. Goyer, the brains behind the show, has spoken at length about the challenge of adapting Asimov’s original set of novellas. These are composed of essentially disconnected short stories, so that (for exampe) Salvor actually only appears in the first installment.
I won’t go into how the writers have managed to keep Salvor around, but I think it works when, in the final episode, a number of character arcs come full circle and key protagonists finally meet. So why has the show made next to no cultural impact? Is it just a case of a (comparatively) unknown IP married to a very talky and sometimes very badly paced screenplay? No doubt creative choices play a role, and the aforementioned dullness of the Terminus plot probably played a role, too.
More generally, I think we might be entering something like ‘peak-IP’. This year alone, we’ve got Foundation, Squid Game, The Expanse, The Wheel of Time and The Witcher season 2, and next year The Lord of the Rings and a number of additional new IP shows will join the pack. Industry watchers like the folk on The Watch have expressed continual skepticism that many of these properties will actually find an audience. Shows like Game of Thrones and Squid Game can’t be replicated by rote formula, they say, and it is largely up to chance and other factors beyond the contol of the screenwriters that dictates the ‘water-cooler conversation’ rating that these shows might obtain. There is no doubt some truth in this, but even a show like Squid Game feels as though it has left the public consciousness after around two months of spectacular success. Perhaps one way to test the hypothesis will be to gauge the reaction to House of the Dragon. Although the final season of Game of Thrones pleased nobody, it remains a popular IP and still commands (to take one measure) huge reddit communities with frequently updated and ongoing discussions. If anything is going to work in the tight new ‘Netflix’ climate, it is this show. If it fails, or is quickly forgotten, it might suggest that people are just tired, and that fantasy/SF IPs are no longer culturally valent as they were ten - twenty years ago, when the Star Wars prequels, LoTR movies and Game of Thrones were all produced.
Whatever the case, House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings shows will (I hope) clarify the cultural status and desirability of fantasy in a world where our TVs are saturated with IP shows. Both are very well known with large fanbases, and both shows are eagerly anticipated (again, to go by the sorts of conversations happening on reddit and twitter). If these cannot find audiences, it is no wonder that a much less well known IP like Foundation is (apparently) having trouble, and failing to grasp a niche in the cultural zeitgeist. There’s a lot there to like - not least Lee Pace as Brother Day - so I hope it does find a fanbase, eventually, but I’m not hopeful. Let’s see if 2022 clarifies matters.