Foundation Season 3 Review: Streaming’s Most Ambitious Spectacle

A century and a half is a mere blink in cosmic time, yet for the universe of Foundation, it has been long enough for an empire to rust. The third season returns to a galaxy remade. The Cleonic Dynasty, once the undisputed ruler of trillions, now governs a declining Imperium, its authority fractured and its future uncertain.

In its place, the upstart Foundation has expanded from a remote outpost into a formidable power. This shifting balance creates a precarious new détente, forcing these ancient adversaries into an uneasy alliance—a galactic-scale reflection of our own era’s anxieties about institutional decay and the realignment of global power.

It is into this fragile political landscape that the series introduces its most disruptive force: a powerful warlord known only as The Mule. He is not another system to be calculated or a rival government to be negotiated with; he is a singular agent of chaos, an unforeseen variable threatening to invalidate Hari Seldon’s entire psychohistorical project.

The arrival of this psychic conqueror poses an existential threat, suggesting that humanity’s greatest danger may not be the slow decay of its systems, but the unpredictable actions of one individual.

A Crown of Infinite Resignations

While many shows use their speculative settings to hold a mirror to our world, Foundation’s most potent cultural critique comes from its most audacious invention: the Cleonic Dynasty. This continuous loop of cloned emperors is a stunning piece of long-form television, a format uniquely suited to the streaming age’s appetite for high-concept character studies.

The premise itself—three actors playing different ages of the same man, who is himself a different man each season—is a daring narrative experiment exploring the corrosion of power and the performance of masculinity across lifetimes.

This season pushes the experiment into new territory. Lee Pace’s Brother Day, once the embodiment of rigid, muscular imperialism, has collapsed into a state of cosmic ennui. His transformation into a drug-addled, philosophical gadfly is a brilliant subversion of the strongman archetype, suggesting that in an age of irreversible decline, the only sane response for a tyrant might be to simply check out. It is a darkly humorous portrait of leadership burnout.

In stark contrast, Terrence Mann’s Brother Dusk, facing his own scheduled obsolescence, recoils into petty cruelty. He represents the terror of the old guard, clinging to relevance by becoming more monstrous. While Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton) dutifully steps into the steely mask of leadership, it is the opposition between Day’s abdication and Dusk’s desperation that speaks to our current moment of intergenerational friction.

Yet, the dynasty’s true weight is held by Demerzel, the eternal robotic majordomo played with breathtaking subtlety by Laura Birn. Her character is where the show’s commentary on power becomes most acute. As an immortal, female-presenting android bound by her programming to serve a succession of flawed men, she is a powerful metaphor for the silenced knowledge and suppressed agency of women throughout history.

She is the keeper of the Empire’s secrets and the executor of its atrocities, her own consciousness a prison of complicity. This season, her quiet existential crisis—prompted by the potential end of all humanity—is less about the fate of the galaxy and more about the unbearable burden of serving a system that is both her purpose and her cage.

Architects and Inheritors

If the Empire’s story is one of cyclical decay, the Foundations’ narrative is about the messy, sprawling process of building something new. This season makes a significant, culturally resonant choice by formally passing the narrative baton. The series repositions Gaal Dornick, a young woman of color, not merely as the protegee of a great man, but as the story’s active center.

Her ascension from student to the burdened leader of the Second Foundation—juggling military strategy, political diplomacy, and the psychic anxieties of her people—is a deliberate reframing of Isaac Asimov’s original “Great Man” theory of history. This shift is a quiet but firm statement on who gets to be the hero in today’s epic narratives, moving agency to a new generation.

This promotion of the inheritor necessitates the partial eclipse of the architect. Hari Seldon, the intellectual patriarch of the revolution, now exists mostly as a ghost in the machine. His physical and digital forms linger on the periphery, his grand plan ticking along without his direct intervention.

While Jared Harris’s gravitas is missed in the foreground, sidelining him is a daring move for a streaming series that built its initial appeal around its star. It forces the narrative to grapple with a potent contemporary question: what happens when a generation must execute a plan for a future its founders could never fully comprehend?

The answer, it seems, is chaotic and crowded. The show’s signature time jumps once again flood the story with new faces, a structural challenge that tests the audience’s ability to form fresh attachments. This season’s additions are a mixed bag of modernization.

A far-future influencer couple, played by Cody Fern and Synnøve Karlsen, feels like a particularly on-the-nose attempt to connect with present-day anxieties, cheekily asking what role social media clout plays at the end of the world. Other additions, like Brandon P. Bell’s swaggering operative, offer more conventional entry points. The result is a narrative that accurately reflects the scope of a galactic movement but risks diffusing its focus across too many new players.

Chaos Is a Flat Circle

In a series defined by complex systems and the slow decay of institutions, the introduction of a singular, spectacular villain is a notable concession to narrative convention. The Mule arrives not as a political rival but as a force of nature, a psychic warlord whose dramatic entrance—single-handedly obliterating fleets—provides the sprawling story with a much-needed focal point.

His function is clear: he is a narrative accelerant, a walking plot device whose existence simplifies the galactic conflict into a more familiar struggle against unambiguous evil. By embodying the unpredictable human element that Hari Seldon’s mathematics failed to account for, he forces the story’s factions out of their ideological corners and into a desperate fight for survival.

The casting of Pilou Asbæk in the role feels both inspired and deeply ironic. An actor now seemingly destined to portray chaotic, seafaring marauders in prestige genre shows, he brings the same anarchic glee and scenery-chewing menace to The Mule that he did to his infamous Game of Thrones character. It is an efficient, if not particularly imaginative, choice.

Asbæk is undeniably watchable, but the characterization itself often feels one-dimensional. Compared to the layered, psychologically rich tyrants of the Cleonic dynasty, The Mule can appear as a caricature of villainy, a “mustache-twirling” catalyst whose primary purpose is to provoke a reaction. He is the blunt instrument the season uses to test its more finely crafted characters, a necessary evil for the plot, even if he is the least complex person in the room.

Streaming’s Imperial Ambition

There is a potent irony in watching a story about the inevitable heat-death of a galaxy-spanning empire that is itself one of the most opulent and imperial productions of the current streaming era. Every dollar of Foundation’s colossal budget is visible on screen, a deliberate spectacle of corporate power from a platform eager to define its brand.

The show’s visual grandeur—from the immaculately detailed ship interiors to the breathtaking planetary vistas—is a flex, a declaration that television can now achieve a scale once reserved for theatrical blockbusters. This visual feast, combined with Bear McCreary’s sweeping, emotionally resonant score, creates a world so fully realized that its primary function is to be immersive. It is a product designed not just to be watched, but to be inhabited.

This maximalist approach extends to its storytelling. In an age of algorithm-driven content and distracted second-screening, Foundation makes a bold demand for the viewer’s undivided attention. While this season’s more focused plot provides a clearer path through the narrative, the show retains its signature density, rewarding those willing to engage with its complex ideas and intricate political maneuvering.

This balancing act between intellectual rigor and thrilling spectacle is the central project of modern prestige television. All the elements—the stunning production values, the intricate character work, the high-stakes action—work in concert to create an experience that feels both significant and deeply entertaining, representing the high-water mark of what this mode of lavish, long-form storytelling can achieve.

Foundation – Season 3 picks up its epic adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s saga with new characters like The Mule, Dr. Ebling Mis, and Preem Palver, portrayed by Pilou Asbæk, Alexander Siddig, and Troy Kotsur respectively . The 10-episode season premieres July 11, 2025, on Apple TV+, with new episodes releasing every Friday until September 12, 2025.

Full Credits

Director(s): David S. Goyer, Roxann Dawson, Alex Graves, Jennifer Phang, Andrew Bernstein, Mark Tonderai, Rupert Sanders, Luke Scott

Writers: David S. Goyer, Josh Friedman, Leigh Dana Jackson, Jane Espenson, Dana Jackson, Victoria Morrow, Marcus Gardley, Olivia Purnell, Liz Phang, Julia Cooperman

Producers and Executive Producers: David S. Goyer, Josh Friedman, Robyn Asimov, Dana Goldberg, Bill Bost, Cameron Welsh, David Ellison

Cast: Jared Harris, Lee Pace, Lou Llobell, Leah Harvey, Laura Birn, Cassian Bilton, Terrence Mann, Isabella Laughland, Ella-Rae Smith, Kulvinder Ghir

Director of Photography (Cinematographers): James Hawkinson, Jonathan Freeman, Mike Eley, Aaron Morton

Editors: Adam Penn, John Refoua, Michael Ruscio, Tim Murrell

Composer: Bear McCreary