Hello /c/sciencefiction lemmies. I’ve put together an image of some of the most discussed shows from July 2023.
Are there any science fiction TV series you are currently in the middle of watching or plan on watching in August?
Here is last months post. What are you Watching? (July 2023)
I’m watching Foundation (just started, so I’m on s01e01!), Silo, and I’m planning to rewatch Babylon 5.
Foundation is great. I’m enjoying the hell out of it. Silo was really good too
Silo started out pretty good for me, but lost steam about halfway through.
Seems like it takes a mighty deuce over the classic and everything it was saying, as is tradition for Asimov adaptations. Did you read the books?
I tried to read Asimov (by recommendation of my grandpa) as a kid and even though I was big into really heavy, dry philosophy and philosophical books I couldn’t get through any of his books - if you watch Foundation without expecting a great adaptation of the books (which in and of itself would be quite an achievement which I doubt we’ll ever see) it is a pretty great scifi show in my opinion. Certainly piqued my interest in finally reading the books even if it’s nothing like the show, but then again I don’t expect adaptations to be exact replicas of the original work and find that very difference enjoyable.
a direct adaptation of Foundation would never have worked, I’ve been enjoying the show but I’m not fully sold on how they’re doing it. I think they are going too hard into ideas only introduced in the later books (written decades after the main trilogy) that changed certain characters, making those later revelations too obvious and damaging the characters somewhat by doing it, but that’s just me having read the expanded asimoverse books recently, mostly it’s been fun.
What I would love to see is more isolated original stories in the foundation/empire/robots universe, it feels like an untapped treasure in that regard.
Did you watch it? I read the books and I’m really liking it. It very obviously diverges from the books early on, but I like to think of it as a different timeline, where things happened slightly differently. That’s what it feels like, anyway. Not sure about how they’re characterizing the Mule though, he’s not supposed to be some superman blasting his way through the galaxy, but the man in the shadows, orchestrating everything from behind the scenes.