The Stress of Her Regard

Overly melodramatic, dragging narrative and badly written dialogue, this show keeps delivering timidity for the ideas, screwed up early with promising some epic showdown between the mule and foundation, and dragging it out because the clone empire idea is not very interesting but they are stuck with it, instead of telling the story of psychohistory and the evolution of the foundation, so here we are... just sitting through pointless overhyped non-drama, the show could have been so much more.

This could have been a brilliant title for the most boring episode in the history of sci fi storytelling but alas, it has already been used and copywrited. So the best I can find as a a replacement is an extra smart line of the show when Empire meets Demerzel the Robot: "Do robots dream of wiping their own asses, then?" A very palusible question, a deeply philosophical one.. Yet Asimov is already feeling uneasy in his grave..

There are ways of spending huge amounts of money in that newly discovered continent the one with a dream: Extra expensive marriages in Venice (that is in Vegas, don't be fooled), trying to send rockets to Mars even if they explode during lift off, or (best of all), create EXTRA BORING tv shows that turn one page of story into 1000 episodes of BS (Basic Science) Your money, your waste.

Enjoy !

Perhaps the actress playing Demrezel, is the reason, but I find her character very interesting. Series often struggle with taking a a stance on sentience for artificial creations. It is a struggle to pick a side and stick to it, sure. But she is one of the most interesting and an observer of humans for 18k years (minus the 5k or so locked up). Would she not be worth exploring in tandem with the future of humanity? I find the clone storyline an adequate exploration of a small sample of humans... however they should not be such a focus. Not overly familiar with Asimov, but familiar enough that robots are a topic near and dear... this episode felt kind filler. Also the musical instrument "used" by the Mule looks like the cosmic key from Masters of the Universe (~1985).

Well it's all kicking off now, isn't it?

Brother Dude showed us that, nihilistic waster that he is, he is still quite capable of being ruthless in pursuit of his desires. Book readers will be aware of the significance of Mycogen (albeit handled differently) so the potential for things not quite going to Day's plan is decidedly non-zero.

Meanwhile, most definitely come-of-age Gaal flies straight into the belly of the beast to rescue/ kidnap/ woo Dawn and who knows where that might go. And Han Pritcher, agents of Second Foundation, is scared...

So Dusk is home alone with just Demerzel The Existential Crisis Laden Robot for a companion.

An episode about connection, and as a tip: if you find yourself complaining about soap opera then you may as well say "you have nothing of value to say". Without characters who are changed by events, who might lose everything they care about, and to whom the world they are in actually matters you don't have a story, you have a mechanism. Having characters care about things isn't soap opera: it is storytelling.

Now. Where's my visi sonor?