Foundation

Foundation is Apple TV+'s epic adaptation of Isaac Asimov's landmark science fiction saga, one of the most ambitious productions in the history of streaming television. Based on the novels Asimov wrote between 1942 and 1993, the show follows mathematician and psychohistorian Hari Seldon (Jared Harris), who uses the science of statistical prediction to foresee the inevitable collapse of the Galactic Empire — a civilization spanning millions of worlds — and sets in motion a centuries-long plan to preserve human knowledge through the dark ages to come. The series spans thousands of years of galactic history, following multiple generations of characters connected by Seldon's grand design.

What distinguishes Foundation from previous Asimov adaptations is its willingness to translate the books' ideas into genuine dramatic spectacle. Showrunner David S. Goyer and his team have constructed a visual world of staggering scale — the planet Trantor with its gleaming metallic sky, the desert world of Terminus where the Foundation takes root — while also finding the human stakes within Asimov's vast and often abstract narrative architecture. The casting is extraordinary throughout, with Jared Harris bringing enormous intellectual gravity to Hari Seldon and Lee Pace achieving something genuinely menacing and complex as the Cleon dynasty of clone emperors.

Foundation rewards patient viewers with one of the grandest narratives in science fiction television, a story about civilization, entropy, knowledge, and the long arc of history that feels urgently relevant to the present moment. By its second season, it had developed into one of the most visually and narratively confident science fiction series on any platform, and stands as a testament to what prestige television production can achieve when paired with source material of genuine intellectual ambition.