YMMV / Foundation (2021)

• Anvilicious: The fate of Gaal's world of Synnax is a pretty obvious parallel of climate change sea rises and denialism, with the scientists warning it would come while being ignored by the planet at large.
• Awesome Music: When you got Bear McCreary doing the music, this is to be expected.
  • The main theme is a major standout.
  • "Journey to Trantor" perfectly captures the wonder — and terror — of Gaal's first FTL jump, followed by awe as she sees Trantor and the Star Bridge for the first time.
  • "The Promise of the Imperium" is the track that plays during the Orbital Bombardment of Anacreon and Thespis, and as you'd expect it's full of Sad Battle Music and Orchestral Bombing.
• Broken Base: The fandom is split between people who enjoy the show's deviation from the books and those who wish it was more similar to the source material. The former group argues that most (if not all) of the alterations were helpful and that the books are so hard to translate to screen that a straightforward adaptation would have failed, while the latter group argues that the series is so different from Asimov's work that it might as well be considered In Name Only. Both groups generally agree that the storyline centering on the Cleons is a high point, however.
• Catharsis Factor: Tellem Bond's demise is extremely satisfying to watch after she spends half the season manipulating, murdering and lying solely to obtain a new body to transfer her consciousness into. It's safe to say that nobody shed a tear when Gaal finally made Tellem snap by exposing her to her fears, and when Hari, who Tellem thought she killed a couple of episodes earlier, showed up alive and well to deliver the final blow.
  • After watching Cleon XVII stroke his ego and act smug towards everyone, from his supposed co-rulers to his supposed arch-enemy to his best general, it's very satisfying to see him outwitted by Riose and jettisoned out of the airlock with the help of Hober Mallow's castling device.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Cleon XIII, naturally. He might be a tyrannical emperor with questionable morals, but he has a couple of Pet the Dog moments and he is played by Lee Pace, so it was really a question of when, not if, this trope would come into effect. Plenty of fans have "redeemed" him in their fanfiction, generally by downplaying his more villanous moments and giving him a more traumatic past to serve as a Freudian Excuse.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Brother Day in all his incarnations, largely because of Lee Pace's spectacular performance. His numerous shirtless scenes likely contributed, too; the fanbase's thirst for him officially reached Memetic Mutation levels when The Late Late Show with James Corden declared him "the galaxy's daddy." Regardless of fanservice, though, the storyline focusing on the Empire is widely considered to be one of the strongest parts of the show, with some fans enjoying it more than any of the scenes featuring the titular Foundation itself.
• Growing the Beard: Whereas the first season got an overall decent reception, reviews for the second have been much better.
• Jerkass Woobie: Cleon XIII. Like his brothers before him, he's a tyrant at the helm of a ruthless galactic empire in decline. Among other things, he makes Demerzel kill Halima knowing that it conflicts with the former's faith, sentences Azura to an incredibly cruel Fate Worse than Death, and has a deeply unsettling habit of watching Demerzel peel off her artificial skin. That being said, he has occasional Pet the Dog moments that make him far more sympathetic than his elder "brother" Cleon XII, and it's hard not to feel bad for him when Cleon XIV, whom he raised like a son, dies at the hands of Demerzel.
• Memetic Mutation: "To Beki's Arsehole." ^Explanation In the last episode of the second season, Bel Riose and Hober Mallow finally crack open Mallow's expensive wine, only to find that it tastes disgusting, with Riose going so far as to compare it to "Beki's arsehole." The two then toast to Beki's arsehole just before their ship explodes. Because Hober Mallow, Bel Riose, and Beki had all been popular characters, and because of the sheer, hilarious absurdity of the phrase being Mallow and Riose's last words, it quickly became a popular memetic phrase used by fans to indicate their approval of the season's satisfying ending.
• Moral Event Horizon: Cleon XVII straddles this line through the second season, justified mainly by his desire to avert Seldon's prediction that the Empire will fall, but he ultimately crosses the line when he orders the Invictus to be crashed into Terminus, destroying the planet in the process, all because he wasn't as much of an outlier in Seldon's plans despite all his efforts to counteract it.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Fans have criticized the show for the additional story or deviations from source material. Some consider the additions like the Star Bridge incident or the journey to Terminus to be filler. Others feel the changes don’t add anything to the plot, or that the result has little in common with the source material.
• Wham Episode: Season 2 has proven rich on these.
  • Episode 8, "The Last Empress" ends with the revelation that Cleon I intended Demerzel as his true heir, and the Genetic Dynasty as her mere puppets.
  • Episode 9, "Long Ago, Not Far Away" ends with Terminus destroyed when General Riose crashes the Invictus into the planet at Cleon XVII's orders.

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