Foundation TV Review - s01e04 - Barbarians at the Gate

Author:  Dread Pirate Mikey Date: 2021-10-24 22:20:15+00:00

At this point of the TV series, most of the basic setup is done. Cleon vs Luminism is a main point of view. The Foundation must now fight the Anacreaons. From here we have spoilers!

I'll do my best to keep the episode summaries brief, but I'm afraid this will all be tldr. The show runners apparently decided to just chuck the books. So the only thing that is pretty much the same are character names.

Foundation Ep 04 - Barbarians at the Gate

The episisode starts out with Brother Dawn trying to kill himself and failing. I know where this is going from the books. (Spoiler!) The hot gardener chick is gonna kill him. In the book, Cleon wrecked a gardeners life by trying to be nice. The gardener LOVED his job, LOVED it. Then Cleon made him head gardener which ruined his life to the pointed he killed Cleon. So expect a similar outcome for this female gardener.

Brother Day has a hooker, but gets interrupted. There is schism of faith in Luminism. A leader in this hugely popular religion has declared that the Cleons have no souls. This has all the Cleons worried. This was one of Seldon's predictions.

Back to Terminus. Salvor flips the situation and captures the Anacreon leader (Phara). She questions Phara and it is pretty clear Salvor is a telepath and can read minds. They kind of imply that the Encyclopedians are pyschohistorians but they are not. There is not one psychohistorian on the planet.

The Anacreon troops show up. The are gonna attack the Foundations shield. On no!!!

Quick observations on Ep 04

It's actually stated in the episode about Salvor:

"we have been following your lead from the moment you pulled yourself upright."

lol. Classic. I'd love to see a 3yr old ordering everyone in town around. Maybe this is why they are still living in shipping conatiners after 30 years.

Don't get the luminism plot line. A change in doctrine in a peacful religion isn't gonna change anything. Just silly and boring to me. Unfortunately its about 1/3 of the show. There seems to be no point to it.

Seems like the foundation is pretty out gunned. Next ep should be interesting.

Differences from the Book Ep 04

  • Everything in this episode is a complete invention except for Cleon and the Gardnener.
  • There are NO pychohistorians on Terminus, only scientists.
  • Salvor Hardin was NOT a telepath.
  • The Anacreon situation is completely different in the book. They show up to setup a military base to "protect" the poor unarmed Foundation people. Salvor Hardin plays them off against the Thespins to save the Foundation. Politics and cunning, not force.

tags: #tv #scifi #foundation