David Goyer isn’t the first person to want to bring an adaptation of novelist Isaac Asimov’s science-fiction “Foundation” books to the screen, but he’s the person who got it done.
With a reasonably strong 10-episode debut season having aired in 2020 on Apple TV+, the second season debuted Friday on the streaming service with the first of 10 more installments.
“It’s kind of a fever dream,” says Goyer, the showrunner and executive producer, in a recent video interview.
“It’s taken about four-and-a-half years — almost five years — of my life so far just bringing these two seasons to screen,” continues Goyer, who has myriad television-writing (“FlashForward,” “Da Vinci’s Demons”) and movie-writing (“Batman Begins,” “Man of Steel”) credits on his resume. “But we’ve got 20 episodes under our belt, and I look back at it and I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished. And, you know, I did the impossible, and I think it’s pretty good. So I’m happy.”
Published in the 1950s, the late Asimov’s stories involve a Galactic Empire, one predicted to end by the mathematician Hari Seldon through the theory of psychohistory. Seldon is able to start the Foundation, a body whose work is aimed at greatly shortening a period of darkness that, according to his work, otherwise will last 30,000 years.
The new season brings back primary characters from the first — including Seldon, as inhabited by Jared Harris (“Mad Men,” “Chernobyl”) — even though it begins more than a century after the events of the first-season finale. Seldon’s continued existence is one change Goyer and the other writers have made from the books, another being the clever invention of the ongoing Empire-ruling triumvirate of “brothers” Dawn (Cassian Bilton), Day (Lee Pace) and Dusk (Terrence Mann), each a clone of Emperor Cleon the First at a different phase of life.
In a conversation edited for length and clarity, Goyer — who directs two episodes this season after directing the Season 1 capper — discusses updating the saga while trying to stay true to Asimov’s vision, what the second season has in store for viewers and what it will take for them to see a third.
Given the large scale and epic nature of the show, there must have been lessons you learned from the first season that you’ve applied going forward.
Absolutely. Well, the obvious advantage is we were not as burdened with so much expositional sort of pipe laying as we were in Season 1 so we could hit the ground running a bit faster in Season 2. I wanted to dig even deeper emotionally. I wanted to introduce more love stories. Asimov also displayed a lot of wry sense of humor in his writings, and so I wanted to introduce more appropriate levity in the story because I think anytime you can get the audience to laugh with you, you’re connecting with them emotionally and it’s easier to then make them cry — if you’ve gotten them to laugh first.
I was determined to peel back the layers of Hari Seldon as a character, which is something I think you’ll see from the very first frame of the show. And I was determined not to go by the same playbook that we did in Season 1, because often you get that from the people that you’re working with: “Can you do the same thing but just, like, 10 percent different or 10 percent bigger?” And that’s boring, and that’s where just creatively as an artist you go to die. So I just wanted to keep pushing ourselves and just let the show that is “Foundation” now (and) to have it keep evolving.
Well, to that end, there’s the obligatory question. You’re a fan of the novels, but you’re making a show for a modern audience. And as with any adaptation, you’ve made changes. Can you talk about the balance of trying to stay true to Asimov’s larger story and themes and crafting the show you want to make?
That is the $64,000 question, right? We do not set out to change as much as we can; we actually set out to retain as much as we can — and identify in each season or each storyline (the core elements).
I like what we’re doing. I’ve always called the show a “remix” — the same way that Damon Lindelof referred to his “Watchmen” work as a remix. There are some elements and characters that map fairly closely to events and characters in the books, and there are other characters that start to deviate more. But I liken it to the difference between Marvel Comics and the (Marvel Cinematic Universe).
I think we’re kind of (50 percent) Asimov, 50 percent the show now, roughly.
Obviously, one major change is you found a way to keep Hari Seldon in the saga. How much of that choice is your love of the character and how much of it is that Jared Harris is great?
Well, it’s both. But I’m certain that had Asimov been initially writing “Foundation” when (artificial intelligence) was the thing that Hari would have appeared not as a holographic tape that you couldn’t interact with but (as) an AI that you can interact with. I’m absolutely certain that Asimov would have availed himself of that plot development. And so that alone, I think, is sort of a logical progression. But once you follow that through, then Hari Seldon continues to become an active character in the show, and that changes the polarity of the show and it changes it from the books.
One fascinating element of the story is the triumvirate leading the Empire: Dawn, Day and Dusk. How much fun have you and the writers had exploring that dynamic?
That’s a blast. It was a kind of necessity, born from the fact that the first book of “Foundation” is really an anthology of loosely connected short stories, and we needed an antagonist that had a recurring face throughout the centuries. And that’s how we arrived at that plot device. But having arrived at it, it just creates for some juicy storytelling. With Season 2, we kind of said, “well, how perverse can we get with his characters?” (Laughs)
Religion plays a large role this season. Anything you want to tease pertaining to that aspect of the story?
Well, that element was in the books. The Church of the Galactic Spirit was something that was in the books, and Asimov was very interested in the intersection between science and religion and the ways that science and religion can be exploited by different communities and different civilizations.
And the place where it’s different, as you cited earlier, is that Seldon still exists in this world. So the one thing that Asimov didn’t have to play with was the idea of a character holding himself off as a prophet who’s still alive and still interacting with his flock — and whether or not he’s a false prophet. And that alone is something that sort of propels the story into a slightly different direction.
There are reports that you’re already making Season 3. Is that true? And is there an overall road map you’re working on with an endpoint?
That is not true. A lot of that’s going to be dependent upon how (Season) 2 is received by the audience. Of course, we’re thinking about and preparing for (a third season).
There is a road map. I did originally pitch eight seasons, 80 episodes to Apple TV+. We’ll see if we get there.
I think it’s important to have a road map, especially for these big, novelistic, gargantuan shows. And certainly, that was a concern of Apple’s — and a fair concern — that they expressed when I first met with them.
