Foundation (TV series)

Foundation is an American science fiction television series for Apple TV+, created by David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman and adapted from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation stories. The show features an ensemble cast including Jared Harris, Lee Pace, Lou Llobell, and Leah Harvey. It first aired on September 24, 2021. The second season followed in July 2023, and a third season has been announced but has not yet been released.

The story takes place in a distant future where most of the known galaxy is under the despotic rule of a trio of leaders called Empire—a “genetic dynasty” of clones descended from the long-dead Emperor Cleon. The clones include Brother Day (a Cleon in his prime), Brother Dusk (a retired, aging Cleon who advises), and Brother Dawn (a young Cleon being groomed to succeed Brother Day). Unknown to most, the dynasty has been secretly managed for 400 years by Lady Demerzel, the emperor’s majordomo, who is actually a unique, ageless humanoid robot—the last remnant of a robot army defeated 6,000 years earlier.

A young prodigy named Gaal Dornick solves a complex mathematical proof and wins a galaxy-wide contest created by famed mathematician Hari Seldon to find someone who can understand his work. Arriving on the capital planet Trantor, Gaal becomes caught in a conflict between the Cleonic dynasty and Seldon’s schools over the merits of psychohistory—a science Seldon developed to predict the actions of large populations across vast timelines. With Gaal’s help, Seldon publicly forecasts the empire’s decay and imminent fall, which cannot be prevented but whose effects might be lessened by creating a Foundation to preserve human knowledge and innovation. The Cleons initially dismiss Seldon, but after a series of predicted catastrophic events begins, they allow him and his followers to establish the Foundation in exile on the remote planet Terminus. The series follows the empire’s later conflicts with the growing Foundation and its allies over centuries, the characters and stories that connect them, and how the galaxy’s future is threatened by the one event Seldon’s psychohistory fails to predict.

The main cast includes Jared Harris as Hari Seldon, Lee Pace as Brother Day (and Cleon I in his prime), Lou Llobell as Gaal Dornick, Leah Harvey as Salvor Hardin (seasons 1–2), Laura Birn as Demerzel, Terrence Mann as Brother Dusk, Cassian Bi