A couple of years ago it seemed that Fantasy and Science-Fiction had died its death on television. You’d get the odd show trying to kick-start the genre, but generally, no matter how good, we knew it was only a matter of time before it was cancelled (Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, StarTrek Enterprise, etc, etc, etc). It seemed that the networks had decided Crime shows were all the public wanted and they were happy to provide them in every possible variance…
Since A Game of Thrones proved that speculative fiction done right has potential to capture the interest of mass audiences though, things have changed. This year we’ve heard news that Terry Brooks’s Shannara, Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern, Lev Grossman’s Magicians, Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy and Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (again!) are all getting series/pilots [Editor’s note: Sadly no news or movement on The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss which Century Fox TV purchased the rights for last year though. Arghh!].
Well, here’s another one to add to your list of ‘shows to look out for’:
Foundation by Isaac Asimov.
Yep. Awesome, right? The first concern would be that perhaps it will be something low budget, but seeing as HBO has signed up Jonathan Nolan (Interstellar writer and Person Of Interest showrunner) to adapt the hugely successful series of books we don’t think that’s to be the case at all!
News so far is pretty sketchy, although the show is confirmed, we’ve no idea whether it will be a miniseries, single series or, potentially, a lengthy series such as Game of Thrones, for example. What is clear is that HBO have chosen a Science-Fiction series that has potential to be ‘epic’ (just like Dragonriders of Pern). Done right, this could be a long running series that truly exposes Asimov’s genius to the masses.
Nolan (the brother of Christopher Nolan, by the way) talked about Foundation in a recent interview with IndieWire. He was asked what his favorite piece of Science-Fiction that “people don’t know enough about” was. Here’s what he had to say:
Well, I fucking love the “Foundation” novels by Isaac Asimov — they’re certainly not well-known, but that’s a set of books I think everyone would benefit from reading. That’s a set of books where the influence they have is just fucking massive; they have many imitators and many have been inspired by them, but go back and read those, and there are some ideas in those that’ll set your fucking hair on fire.
That’s a lot of ‘F’ words, sorry, guys!
We’re hoping this series lives up to its potential! Any thoughts on what you’d like to see / not see?
Jennie Ivins
Read these back in the early 70’s when SF (eventually) reached the UK 🙂
Have always loved the original trilogy; not really happy with the continuum, but each to his own.
If they do it well, it will be stupendous 🙂
I don’t like this. I don’t know about others, but I feel another post-Tolkien event coming.
Are they going to put some women in it? Because that would be a good change…