In the Unfinished Business Department. I started these “Watching Foundation” posts while Season 1 was running. I’m going to try to wrap these up as I finish my Season 1 rewatch. Slightly edited thoughts from the initial watch. I’m not removing things that turned out to be wrong, I’ll add parenthetical comments.

Can I do it? It’s five more episodes in four days, let’s give it a try.

Watching Foundation – S1E05

Spoiler Alert! There may be plot complications!

You know how this works. Joseph’s Random thoughts about Episode 5, no post-podcast revelations this time. Simultaneously published at ComicsTheUniverseAndEverything.net.

The Black Hole story scares Gaal because of the Event Horizon. In her dream, she’s swimming in the darkness and that does not scare her; but the water stands for her religion and it’s telling that it’s in darkness.

Another interesting font.  

They put those prayer stones into infants.  Barbaric.

Upon Awakening is a religious notion on Synnax.  Makes sense with the “Sleeper” being the central mythological character.

Shit. So much water! Keven Costner is going to show up, isn’t he?

They check the university for illegal activity.  Gaal encounters “Instructor Sorn,” apparently a former Professor at the university.  He knows Gaal from when she was a baby.  “All analytical learning goes against the faith of the awakening.”

She just tries to save him from the seers. “Just drop the books and go…”

“They are just words on a page.”  He gives her Kalle’s book of folding. “Furthering knowledge is the most noble work of humankind.”

Strong parallels between Synnax and the Galaxy.  Sorn is channeling Hari.

“We did this, not your slumbering God.”

The door looks like a Star Trek delta.  But otherwise, this is terrifying.  Sorn is cleansed which is to say executed.

Gaal takes part in the execution and then immediately (?) dives to retrieve the book she wanted.  Sure, NOW she raises a fuss about the rising water. And enters the math contest.

Gaal gets a message back from Hologram Hari.  No, not that one.

There are sexism and bias.  There’s resistance to Gaal’s solution because she’s a woman and from Synnax.  “The beauty of Mathematics is that it’s pure.”

Hari says it’s “ingenious, elegant, and true.”  A mathematician would not say “true.”

Gaal comes clean and complains about the rising water, but not she’s raising enough of a fuss and then she leaves for Trantor.

There’s not enough of a feeling of her awakening.  Doing the priesthood’s bidding and then sneaking around.  She seems like a hypocrite or a coward.  Also, there’s more “Math is Magic.”  500 years old problems don’t get solved overnight just because someone found a scroll.

Gaal on a ship.  It doesn’t make sense that the blood is still on her hands or the knife. 

That was quite a meltdown.  And “Raych Foss Arrival Protocol” screws up a beautiful theory.

There’s that font again.  It would have been a nice touch if it had been specific to Synnax.

Salvor tries to talk sense into the Anacreonians.  “Desperate people make mistakes.” 

I feel like I’m watching Braveheart.  I never wanted to watch Braveheart.

Meanwhile, the imperial ship arrives and the Anacreonians have hidden their cannon.  Lord Dorwin isn’t going to last very long, is he?

I’m not sure what purpose it serves to have the computer fucking with Gaal.  

That casket thing Hari’s in is going to keep him alive.  Obviously? (turns out, no.)

Lewis: “We will devote our lives to protecting the empire.”  It’s impossible that he’s that stupid.  Is it a pose?

Why would Lewis suspect Gaal was behind Hari’s murder?

Raych is cryptic.  Says not to lose faith in the plan.  The show makes it plain that he’s speaking for Gaal’s benefit.  There are too damn many executions on this show.

Phyra takes down the “standard imperial issue shield.”  Which they already told us was going to happen.

Cheap pathos.  Gaal’s attempting suicide.  We’ve made a lot of characters female, but they wouldn’t write a male character with crippling despair.  What the hell just happened?

The ship’s course was corrected.  It’s inconceivable that it would be that violent within the ship without some sort of warning. And the timing is ridiculously convenient.

Mathematical technobabble is annoying and it’s unrealistic that what she does is accurate enough given the numbers that she’s throwing about.  They want to show us Gaal is smart but the puzzles are annoying.  The mission is almost scuttled because the computer is screwing with her rather than giving her information.

Back on Terminus, there’s a ridiculous amount of shooting with no one getting hit.  These guys are worse shots than Storm Troopers.

Phrya has Salvor’s mom.  This is too much of a repeat of the earlier encounter where they tried to show us that Salvor’s smart.  But her Mom clearly understood what Salvor wanted it’s dumb to waste time apologizing.  This is a lack of respect for the audience.

The fight scene is pretty well choreographed but maybe not because it’s so poorly lit.  And the Grand Huntress of Anacreon should be more formidable.

Gaal goes to see with her own eyes.  But she shouldn’t be able to see the stars.  Letting this error slide is almost a convention, but making it a plot point just draws attention to it.

Terminus isn’t innocent.  “Because of what your profit said, my home world burned.”

Lord Dorwin didn’t last very long, did he?

The blood is disappearing of course Hari is still alive.  But what’s the deal with him phasing in and out? (In retrospect, this is Hologram Hari, Mark 1.)

Antiparallel vectors, by the way, have parallel but opposite directions.

All Images from Foundation on Apple TV+.