Foundation - TV series

 I just watched the first episode of Foundation on Apple+.

Personally, I was ambivalent about subscribing to Apple+. I did subscribe to Apple Music for a while (and switched to Google Play Music, which I do somewhat regret, because of YouTube Music), and had a couple of iPads, but I’m not an Apple fan.

In particular, not having an Android app for Apple+, which is really in your face monopolistic behavior — yes, everyone else does it when convenient, including Amazon and Google (in particular, not having Youtube/Youtube Music skills for Alexa), but they are harder to avoid.

Also, they seem to be taking a boutique streaming service angle, which is nice but diminishes the service value (i.e. how long till I watch everything I want to?)

Anyway, I got a 3 month free trial from another streaming service (Globoplay), and that was convenient because while I am OK skipping the rest of their series so far, I am a huge Asimov fan, and I have been since I was a kid. So of course I was going to have to watch it.

So far I am not disappointed. There are some obvious changes from the source material, which even I (who last read the books like 20 years ago) could notice. But the first episode was perfectly nice, and did a great job of introducing the universe. There were a few interesting additions, too — I certainly don’t remember the “Genetic Dinasty” thing.

I am also pleased that it started on the later books, instead of the first, which was pretty dry (clearly Asimov got a LOT better over the years, which is of course not surprising, given how many books he wrote).

Overall, I think it is very promising.

On a side note, why is the Apple+ app so much faster than everything else? It is like 5x faster than Netflix and Prime, and even more than the super slow HBO Max app…

Update: I have been keeping with the new episodes. I still like it, but I'd say it is vaguely inspired by the books. And I am bothered with how the propulsion system was supposed to work in the slow ship. No distortion, seemed to go leisurely through those asteroids... As a SF fan, I find it annoying when the story doesn't bother to make any sense.

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