S02.E01: In Seldon's Shadow

[AnimeMania]

Hari finds himself trapped in a mysterious prison. An assassination attempt leaves Day shaken. Gaal and Salvor devise an escape plan.

Premiere Date: July 14, 2023    Apple TV+

[AnimeMania]

I don't remember much about Season One, but I thought that nobody was supposed to know that robots exist, and there she is walking around the palace with half a head.

I know it was for dramatic effect, but it you have a plastic bag sitting next to you, trap a little air for later, I thought thinking and problem solving was the reason they were so greatly admired.

[NeenerNeener]

Lee Pace must have spent the last 18 months working out. Damn, that man looks good naked.

[UnoAgain]

Only caught the 1st few minutes before I had to head off to work...that opening with day and Demerezel was..off putting....when I get home I'll finish epi 1 and 2

[marinw]

This show is a gorgeous mess and I love it. Best nude fight scene since Virgo Mortensen in A History of Violence.

Edited July 14, 2023 by marinw

[AmigaJoe]

Title sequence reminds me so much of His Dark Materials...

-so much Dust.

[PurpleTentacle]

Opening is still baller (marry me, Bear!). Rest of the episode, still pretty bad.

They really went with the 138 year timejump, huh? So every bit of character development last season we saw with Dawn and Day, pretty much useless and forgotten. No fallout of Demerzel breaking the first law of robotics and killing a Cleon. No nothing. Great. That was just the only interesting storyline in the whole show. Now we are stuck with Gaal and Salvor, I guess...

Demerzel and Cleon having sex was extremely uncomfortable, considering the relationship we've seen her have with other Cleons and as Dusk pointed out, she having changed his diapers. I'm wondering why she is playing him. She can't really be into that.

That Gaal made a copy of Hary is a retcon, right? We got no indication that she made one last season. So are there three copies around now, one on Terminus, one on Helicon and one with Gaal? Or did the second foundation not happen, because of the stunt that Gaal pulled?

Is that why the timeline is so fucked? Also how does the dodecahedron know that the timeline didn't turn out as expected? Does it monitor the entire galaxy? How does it do that?

I guess that retcon gives them opportunity to have more of Jared Harris in this season. So that's a plus. That cliffhanger was kind of ridiculous though. We saw into Hari's mind and what he thinks. So that "reckoning" will be him apologising to Gaal for not including her in the plan.

Of course Empire ships found the 138 year old message exactly now, when Gaal and Salvor woke up and that will lead to the second crisis. What a coincidence!

That the Epire scientists seem to have exact genetic code of Cleon 1, to compare the current Cleon's code to, so they can determine that it has been altered, but still can't clone a perfect copy from that, still makes no sense. And now we are told the genetics keep drifting further? How, they aren't cloned from each other, they are cloned from one source.

Overall very "meh" episode. Not as bad as the later episodes of last season, but give it time...

[AllyB]

On 7/18/2023 at 1:04 AM, PurpleTentacle said:

That Gaal made a copy of Hary is a retcon, right? We got no indication that she made one last season.

No. It was shown last season that she put his consciousness in the the knife and made sure to take the knife with her when she got off the Raven.

[paramitch]

I was really disappointed in this but have kept watching, and all I have to say is that the first three or four minutes with Lee Pace here made it all worthwhile.

Shallow? Yes.

But honestly -- he's the only reason I'm still here (well, him and Jared Harris, who is totally slumming it in this show).

Pace is the only one who is, for me, playing a genuinely complex and interesting person. Yeah, sure, Day is 75% evil and power-hungry, but he's interesting, smart, complicated, and incredibly charismatic. The fact that he's well-acted, and by a ridiculously beautiful human being, is just the icing on the cake.

I just wish the rest of the show lived up to the Empire stuff.