fundament season twoarrives this week ( here ’s our catch - up on time of year one ) , which mean a return tothe Isaac Asimov - created sci - fi realmwhere math anticipate the hereafter , knockoff rule the galaxy , and a handful of unlikely Hero and anti - sub do their good to keep humanity afloat . io9 got a chance to talk to showrunner and executive producer David S. Goyer about what ’s in store .
Cheryl Eddy , io9 : The new season widen the scope of the story quite a bit with unexampled setting and characters . Having constitute the world of Foundation in season one , and with patently a gross ton of reservoir textile to draw from , how did you decide which Modern directions to search ?
David S. Goyer : One of the thing that you ’ve touch to was season one had a mess of heavy lifting in condition of exposition and striking pipelining that we had to do . It took the outstanding part of , I believe , three episode in season one . But all of that exposition , we already did , so I felt like we could hit the earth run with the first episode of season two . And frankly , we just had a lot more real estate to dig into the fiber , both old and newfangled . So I just did n’t finger that burden of exposition with time of year two that we did in time of year one .
Lee Pace as Brother Day in Foundation season two.Image: Apple TV+
io9 : WhenI talked to you in the lead of season one , you enjoin that time was almost a character in the serial publication because of how much the story jumped around . time of year two has flashback and shoot - forward , but feel more one-dimensional . Was that a deliberate choice ?
Goyer : Yeah , it was . We wrestled with some of the time stick out in time of year one and we just could n’t figure out a way how not to cover them ; I conjecture perhaps House of the Dragon had some similar things that they had to wrestle with . But season two plays out very much in a linear fashion . There are some flashbacks , but they ’re traditional flashback and they ’re not really destabilized in full term of when the history is take place . That ’s another reason that I call back season two is perhaps a bite more accessible than season one was .
io9 : Was that a concern with season one , that it was n’t accessible ?
Laura Birn as DemerzelImage: Apple TV+
Goyer : I intend , count , it was n’t a vexation . It was quite successful for Apple TV+ . But , you hump , as with any speculation , whether you ’re doing a 2nd movie or a 2d series or something , you say , “ are there areas where we can improve , are there areas where we can broaden the audience ? ” Part of that was seeing if we could tell apart the tarradiddle in more of a linear fashion . Part of that , we ’re control whether or not we could acquaint a morsel more levity into the chronicle , whether or not we could dig profoundly in terms of the characters , in terms of their sexual love lives and affair like that .
io9 : There is more sense of humor — I would n’t say it ’s a funniness , but there ’s more humor in time of year two , for certain . Was that a measured choice , or did that just come about because some of the new fibre ?
Goyer : That was very much a measured choice . There was one picture in season one where [ Brother Day , one of Empire ’s Cleon clon ] is screaming at a statistician and he screams at him so heavily that the statistician has a heart attack and dies . Everyone was very nervous about that scene when we did it — and then everyone thought it was very in force . That ’s one of the matter that I wish we ’d done more of in season one . By no way is it a drollery , but I recollect the fib is broad enough and big enough that you could have some moments of levity . There are certainly characters within the landscape , citizenry like Hober Mallow , that do n’t take psychohistory in earnest . I think it ’s significant to have characters like that to challenge it , to go up against it , which is why he makes for an unlikely hero — he ’s much more of a materialistic person who thinks about the now as opposed to the hereafter .
Jared Harris as Hari SeldonImage: Apple TV+
io9 : Asimov ’s Three Laws of Robotics did n’t really get addressed in time of year one but are explicitly bring to the forefront in season two , especially through Demerzel , a theatrical role we get to know a lot well this time of year . How do you see her specifically meet into those Three Laws , and how does Foundation demoralize them in its own way ?
Goyer : I roll in the hay fans of Asimov ’s work were marvel how Demerzel ’s actions could be possible if she / it were beholden to the Three Laws of Robotics , or whether or not the Three Laws even existed within our show . Retroactively , Asimov made the Three Laws and golem live within Foundation , and the Demerzel character was a theatrical role that wore many faces and had many names over the course of his various interconnected serial . I ’ve say in a few audience that yes , the Three Laws do exist within Foundation the serial publication , and that we will start to take out those and excuse to the audience why Demerzel as a whole is allow to do the thing she ’s doing , even though she might appear to be beholden to those law . If we continue the show , we ’ll dig into that even further .
I distinguish [ Demerzel actor ] Laura Birn when she link the show that her character was a dull sunburn — we do n’t get into her upcountry life that much in season one . And then slow , we strip back the layers , and we get into her interior life a wad at the oddment of time of year two , in a direction that I opine is really effective . That ’s just a storytelling tool that I feel effective sometimes : to keep some part , to keep their interior exist cheeseparing to their chests and then expose those moments later on to garner them . That was very measured in the case of Demerzel .
Leah Harvey as Salvor Hardin and Lou Llobell as Gaal DornickImage: Apple TV+
io9 : Do you see a line of latitude between her influence on Empire and the way AI is influencing the world we live in now ?
Goyer : Yeah , 100 % . There are sound way that AI is influence us , and there are big way that AI is influencing us . And the question , I guess , for Demerzel is because she / it is not a human being — can we trust Demerzel ’s motivies for Empire ? Or can we trust Demerzel ’s motive for humanity at large ? That ’s one of the things that , if the show continue forward , we ’ll continue to be explore .
io9 : Another theme that emerges in season two is how memories lick , and how they can be unreliable . You ca n’t entrust what you think is real . Why do you cerebrate memory is such a touchstone theme for science fabrication as a genre ?
Goyer : Well , I think of — first of all , I just like unreliable narrator . I opine it ’s really interesting if you ’ve got type in your chronicle that have implant memory board , do n’t know whether or not they can trust their memory , or then you have characters that might be lying about thing as well , but are purport to tell the the true . As a narrative equipment , that ’s just something that I lean towards . But it ’s one of the tropes of scientific discipline fabrication : implanting memories , or the ability to read memories , and we introduced this thought of memory audits . But I was also peculiar to search the idea of — on one handwriting , the Empire seemed like this sorting of massive organization , but on the other handwriting , they may be kind of prisoners within their own monolith , within their own conception . That ’s something I wanted to unpack with the three Cleons this season .
io9 : Another big theme is religion , which Foundation did touch on in season one , but takes on new importance moving forward . What can you distinguish us about how Hari Seldon ’s image has shifted in the 138 years since we determine him last ?
Goyer : The basis of that subsist in the books ; Scientism , the Church of the Galactic Spirit is something that Asimov was exploring , and that point of intersection between science and faith . We survive in a much more polarized time than Asimov did when he was write this . One of the things that is very top of brain today , for me at least , is the way that both scientific discipline and religion are weaponize by both the rightfield and the left . So that ’s something that I was concerned in explore and interrogating in season two , and also the idea of false Nebiim , which is something that Asimov did n’t really deal with that much . But because our Seldon characters subsist in a room [ they did n’t exist in ] the books , that ’s something that we had useable to us . The motion is , when you ’ve gravel a digitize cognisance in the form of Hari Seldon that is propose to be act in the best interest of mankind — well , what happens when that role becomes more and more detached from the very masses that he / it are helping or hop-skip to salve ?
io9 : Do you think masses will need to have seen season one in society to enjoy season two ?
Goyer : I do n’t . You do it , it ’s funny , I was latterly tell that about 30 % of an audience for a season two show will not have find out the first season , so I was cognisant a little bit of reiterating certain textile in the first three installment for masses that might be come to the story anew . And I know we ’ve got a couple of coolheaded trailersthat serve as a nifty kind of flat coat on what happened in season one . I think if you watch one of those and then dive into the time of year , you should be in pretty good shape . That being said , I retrieve season two is more rewarding for people if they have watched season one .
io9 : Season one end on a number of a cliffhanger . At what point in season one did you have intercourse you were go to be bring forth a season two ? And how much did that affect the episodes ?
Goyer : Because of covid and lockdown , we ’d only filmed the first three episodes of season one when we shut down for about five months . And in that interim , I ended up writing , or co - writing with a few friends , the first four or five episode of season two — so we had the interesting welfare of then going back into season one , having figured out some things further along , [ and ] we ended up rewrite a few things . So we knew the condition of season two before we ’d even finished time of year one . But it was n’t until , I think it was the third installment of season one dropped , that we bring the official word from Apple TV+ that we ’d be getting a second season . Hopefully a few calendar week after time of year two fall , we ’ll get similar word on season three .
io9 : I was going to demand about that . Obviously you ca n’t say yet , but time of year two does terminate with another flash - forward and a cliffhanger that I ’m sure you ’d love to see resolved . How many seasons do you believe this could go ?
Goyer : Originally , about four and a half old age ago , I pitched Apple eight seasons , which … maybe I ’m just a glutton for punishment . If season two execute well and there ’s the appetite , maybe we ’ll get there . But I ’m cognizant also of , if we do n’t get there , are there other off ramps that I can fetch the show in for a safe and satisfying landing place ?
Foundation time of year two premiere July 14 on Apple TV+ . At 2:00 p.m. ET today , July 10 , Goyer will be host a Q&A for fans on YouTube , here , alongside a cover of season one ’s first episode .
Want more io9 news ? checker out when to expect the latestMarvel , Star Wars , andStar Trekreleases , what ’s next for theDC Universe on film and TV , and everything you want to know about the succeeding ofDoctor Who .
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