What exactly is the Invictus? Any why should I care about it? And does it make much sense to kill the guy who grants you access via his nanobots off that soon? I mean, what if there are any other access ports? And what exactly makes Salvor that superhuman/superwarrior that the Anacreons desperately need?
Okay, so, Seldon planned on Raysh being with him and Gaal setting up Terminus - which might have helped in building a better plotthread on Terminus, i.e. making me care more. But he didn't predict Raysh's attachmend to Gaal, and Gaal being that much of a disturbance overall... However, I don't really like that Gaal's now developed into some kind of prophet... That's not necessary, as the dichotomy of her own upbringing and the galactic events between prophecy/faith and science is one of the interesting things. Blurring the line here just needlessly moves the show into an even more esoteric genre.
And Day keeps getting challenged - but it's unclear to me what the relevance is. I mean isn't this just one planet's leader in a myriad of imperial planets? So, who cares if she grovels at his feet? The only interesting point is, again, Demerzel, who apparently follows that planet's creed... on the other hand, how did she end up with Empire which in a way goes against her beliefs? And how did Seldon arrive through science at pretty much the same conclusion as Halima? Again, I think that a glimpse into the past, before the first emperor, would be very interesting. Anyway, still, it's interesting to see Day so easily riled up by a demagogue - or is he because of Demerzel's actions?
Still waiting for the open confrontation between Dawn and Dusk - but I don't quite understand why they don't engineer the babies with some kind of genetic knowledge. They keep copies around in case some of the live ones malfunctions (has there ever been a malfunctioning empire that had to be replaced) - they feed those copies with the live experiences... but those experiences can't be spied on via the link? Dawn tells the gardener (what's her name?) about his flaws, he tells her about the copy... but wouldn't his doubts be part of the copy as well (if not genetically than at least through the experiences)? So how exactly does that work? And who determines if a copy malfunctions/is imperfect?
Another intense, action-packed episode. Patch of bad luck for poor Salvor, who in addition to losing her dad and being taken prisoner, watches her boyfriend Hugo drift into outer space as well. She and other people from the Foundation are forced to help the Anacreons steer the legendary spaceship Invictus, which is very resilient to intruders, so far without much success.
There is a lot of focus on the Cleon brothers, with Day spending time on the Maiden, where a lot of surprises meet him, as he is for the first time opposed by his android assistant, who shows more adherence to her religion than to him, and next by the sassy wannabe Proxima, who gives him a dressing down, perhaps it's the first time in his life when somebody opposed him. The youngest Cleon clone is now romantically involved with the gardener girl, he reveals to her the truth he discovered about himself that he is not the identical copy of his brothers and would be killed if this is discovered, whereas she encourages him to escape. Apparently, the gardener has a lot of contacts in the underground for a person who works directly with the Empire. Dawn is indeed different in character as he lacks the arrogance and cruelty typical of the Cleon brothers.
There is more about Gaal as she starts to interact with the digital copy of Seldon and learns about his original plan in which he intended to separate her and Raych and never cared about their feelings. She also reveals that she is capable of predicting the future or rather sensing what is going to happen very soon, not in the distant future. She sort of knows what is about to happen but cannot do anything to prevent it.
This show is a constant pendulum swing of compelling/half-interesting (with uneven acting and dialogue), to abject travesty of logic and the source material. I thought I was going to like it more than the last few until the ridiculous and trumped up CW mean girls emo Spanish language drama bullshit they pulled with Gaal and Harry. But the visuals for that portion—including both Gaal and Harry's wardrobe continue to be great—and it just makes it that much more conflicting. Lou looks so cute in that jumpsuit. I don't know what they have in store for Gaal (and Harry), but they're not doing right by their best girl, and though the bulk of the show is stupid, I hope they at least give Llobel something close to the story her talent deserves.
The brother dawn part continued to be passable.
But then there's the Terminus sections, and the talent mismatch with the Day sections. What is it with progressive pop culture writers (okay, inexperienced, mediocre, and moronic writers) making the underdog/resistance faction characters almost wholly obnoxious, moronic, and just flat out lame, while making "the man" look so fucking sexy and awesome? If not the latter, then it's at least always the former. {The Disney "resistance", Wolfenstein Youngblood—I hated almost everyone in those resistance cells, because they were all obnoxious and boring, though neither of those examples were able to come up with a compelling villain, either.} It was a bad joke to put the actress they got for the petulant, trash-talking Zephyr next to Lee Pace's Cleon, and then try to make it look like he got whipped in the conversation, just so they could show his response. It kind of worked in a meta sense, in that Pace showed the difference between natural, impactful delivery, as opposed to forced delivery. They both seemed arrogant and manipulative, but only one of them was effectively charming. I wonder if the writers even know what they're trying to say, or if it's just "Okay, we need to have a character that's an impediment and have her criticize the genetic dynasty, so we can make Cleon prove himself." I mean, I could write a treatise on why a gerontocracy is terrible for humanity, but I was just waiting for Day to be pushed to the point of repeating the previous Day's error of nuking... I forget the name. [sarcasm] I don't know how I could forget, as the barbarian terrorist remnants from that planet are so coherently written and sympathetic! [/sarcasm]
As for the Day section, it was at least somewhat cathartic to have Cleon pick apart Dumberzel's bullshit excuses, but, again, it's a character assassination of the highest order, and if they ever intent to follow the story to its end, it's now entirely necessary to completely ret-con her entire character and place in the story. It's a hamfist sandwich with extra knuckles and mayonnaise.
Review by gremlinVIP 4BlockedParent2021-11-05T02:55:13Z
This show is starting to get so many negative reviews and they all seem to be from book purists, ie. people expecting the show to be exactly as the books were.
Realistically that is impossible. Any series or movie that has ever tried to follow a book exactly has failed. It is an impossible feat to replicate a written masterpiece exactly as it is and turn it into a cinematic masterpiece. The mediums are far too different and the method through which the audience experiences events is vastly different.
All I can say is that if you've read the books, be prepared for the series to be very different. If you're a fan of the books, there are liberties that have been taken with the series you are not going to like, but that does not make the series bad purely based on those differences. Try to approach the series from a new perspective.
Ok, moving on to specific thoughts on this episode, I'm starting to get confused again. Last episode it felt like things were starting to clear up. Details on Gaals backstory were helping stitch all of the time skips together into a more complete tapestry, but this episode was like an asteroid blowing it all apart again.
I'm still really intrigued by Gaal's plotline and where that's going to go. Didn't see the whole 'I can feel the future' thing coming but I guess they have to explain it somehow and with the rest of the history of this world as a backdrop, it doesn't seem as far-fetched as you might think.
I'm also getting a bit more invested into the Terminus story. I really like Salvor and I'm starting to like Phara. She's a little sharp but there's a lot of potential for character development if the screenplay is written well enough.
There's something about this show that has me feeling a bit off. It doesn't feel cohesive enough. It's almost like taking three separate shows that are mildly related, mixing the episodes up in a bag, and randomly playing them back to back. The plot isn't linear AND we have time jumps AND inconsistent narration which is making it confusing for me to understand what's going on and stay invested in the show enough to keep coming back week after week.
I will probably finish out the season and decide from there. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all of these storylines will intersect soon and in a grand enough way to excuse all of this confusion at the beginning, but at this point it doesn't feel like that's going to happen.
Cinematically this is a great show, but I'm not sold on the plot just yet.