Apple predicts you'll want a second season of Foundation

Employing complicated mathematical formulas, a keen grasp of human psychology, and also probably just some numbers that said how many people were watching the dang thing, Apple has pierced the veil and determined that people would probably like to watch another season of its Isaac Asimov adaptation Foundation. Hence a press release today, revealing that the series has now been renewed for a second season, just halfway through its initial run.

Foundation tells (and expands upon) the story of Asimov’s books, about a group of nerdy academics attempting to shorten an inevitable period of galactic decline by marshalling the powers of the predictive science of psychohistory. And while it’s tricky to say that anybody “stars” in a show that covers this wide an expanse of fake history, Jared Harris fronts the series, alongside Lee Pace, Lou Llobell, Leah Harvey, Laura Birn, Terrence Mann, and Cassian Bilton.

In announcing the renewal, Apple brought to the virtual mic David S. Goyer, who serves as executive producer and showrunner for the series. “Since my childhood I’ve dreamed of how Hari Seldon and Eto Demerzel would look and sound — what Terminus and Trantor would feel like,” Goyer said. “Now, with season two, our audience will get to visit more of Asimov’s indelible characters and worlds, including Hober Mallow, General Bel Riose, and all the Outer Suns. I’m thrilled that a whole new generation of fans are reading Asimov’s brilliant masterwork. We’re playing the long game with Foundation and I’m grateful to my partners at Apple and Skydance for entrusting me with this epic. Buckle up. We’re about to fold some serious space.”

All of which is interesting largely for what it says about how far Goyer expects the series to run; Hober Mallow is a character from fairly late into the first Foundation book—assembled from shorter stories originally published elsewhere by Asimov—while Riose is the “villain” of the first half of the second novel, Foundation And Empire. Which means that we’re not going to get to the stuff with The Mule—i.e., the most traditionally structured of the various Foundation stories—until, what, 2023?

Which we might very well get, considering the vote of confidence on display here. Foundation aired its most recent episode, “Barbarians At The Gates,” earlier today; the series’ first season runs through November 19.