Review of 'Foundation' 2.6

Well, I thought Foundation 2.6 was one of the best episodes in the Apple+ TV series so far. Here's why:

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

1. Young Hari -- both as a boy and a young man -- was pure gold. It was a neat, powerful story all on its own. Hari and Yanna were a great, pivotal couple. And the way he killed Yanna's killer Tadj was perfect -- standing in just the right place in the middle of a stampede, so he was safe (just as he had taught himself how to do as a boy) and she was trampled was an epitome of what he is trying to do as the older Hari we have come to know deals with the stampede of ongoing and upcoming events and the current renditions of Empire.

2. Speaking of which, I enjoyed Sareth sounding like Evita as she stood next to Empire who had just proclaimed her to be his and the populace's Queen. Indeed, her proclaiming to the people that she was them, and they were standing up there via her at the center of the universe, could have been taken right out of that iconic Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical. The only difference was that Juan Perón really valued Evita beside him, unlike Day who didn't seem too thrilled with what Sareth was saying.

So those were two outstanding segments and themselves worth the price of admission. The rest, I didn't like quite as much.

3. As I always say about what I see on any fictional television screen, if you don't see a character's head blown off or to smithereens, there's a fair chance the character might live. Further, in science fiction, there are all kinds of ways a seemingly killed character can survive. In the case of Hari, there is already a digital Hari who would survive the flesh-and-blood Hari's death. And, yeah, I see the poetry in his dying, just as he's thinking about and we're learning about what happened to Yanna. But I didn't like seeing him drown, anyway, and I hope we see him in the flesh again. I've gotten to like Hari alive, even though he's not flesh and blood in the original Asimov stories at this point, and even though his digital self would be a passable approximation of the recurring Seldon hologram in the novels.

4. I also don't especially like Tellem, even though she does have a great name that makes me think of that 1962 Exciters song (written by Bert Berns) every time I hear it. And I suppose the Second Foundation she may actually be beginning to think she could help create could be a believable victor, eventually, over The Mule. But, well, we'll have to wait and see.

5. My friend Joel McKinnon mentioned on another site that he really enjoyed the scene with Hober and the Spacers. I thought it was ok, but this might be a good time to mention that, although the Spacers come from Asimov's novels that take place in a time well before the Foundation stories -- they were the first humans to colonize worlds in other solar systems -- the idea of Spacers who have unique abilities to power spaceships comes from the Spacers Guild in Dune. At least, that's the first place I encountered such human-derived beings who could "fold" space.

I'll conclude here by mentioning that there was a character in a fedora hat in episode 2.6 who showed up twice without saying a word -- a sure sign that this character is someone important. Just four more episodes to go this season.

Reviews of other Season 2 episodes of Foundation: 2.1-2.2... 2.3 & 2.5... 2.7... 2.8-2.9... 2.10

[I didn't review episode 2.4.]

[Search on "Foundation" for my reviews of the first season.]