Sometimes being angry is easier than facing the truth

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 TV of 2023

#18 :  Foundation

No show exemplifies the scope of Apple's ambition (or the depth of their pockets) quite like David S. Goyer's Foundation — a brilliantly uncompromising, millennia-spanning sci-fi epic that assaults the senses as readily as it boggles the mind. While the show came out of the gate strong in 2021, it really hit its stride this year, not only managing to condense Isaac Asmiov's bamboozling, idea-packed storyline into a palatable set of ten finely-tooled episodes but somehow making it even more epic and visually arresting than ever. As Empire begins to unravel (both the he and the hegemony) and the Foundation falls into crisis, we're treated to vast space battles, political intrigue, some dazzling character work and Lee Pace fending off a cadre of elite assassins with his manhood flapping in the wind. In short, everything a great show needs! This is hands-down the most ambitious, accomplished work of sci-fi on television.

Skipping over Beef (#19 here, #4 on The Guardian's list), we come to another show I watched at the time - and boy did I have mixed feelings on it.

Normally at this point I'd give you a quick précis of the plot to allow you to get a feel as to whether you'd like it but let me assure you it's so mind-bogglingly complex that a quick précis is going to be anything but - unless I go for something like "stuff happens in time and space".  Does that help?  Possibly not, so let's just move on to my feelings...

The good?  Well, it looks fabulous (really, really FABULOUS), is incredibly ambitious and it feels like it rewards the concentration.  The bad?  It takes an awful lot of concentration and whilst I said it feels like it's rewarded, I did feel like I was guessing as to what was going on a lot of the time- and with a gap of several months since I watched it, I've completely forgotten most of it.  So, if you don't think you'll like it then let me assure you that you won't - it is, however, considerably less of a grind than the first season so if you gave up on that then maybe think about giving it another go.

Oh - did I mention how good it looks?  The scenery, the costumes, the effects - everything is so well designed.  It also feels very expensive - they've spent a lot of money on this.  And time as well - they've built quite a few different worlds here and they feel pretty consistent (as much as I understood what was going on, anyway).

It also has a MASSIVE cast - stand-outs for me are Jared Harris who is excellent as Hari Seldon (despite being dead for the entire season), Lee Pace as Brother Day (I'd forgotten where I knew him from - he was Thranduil in The Hobbit and Ronan in Guardians Of The Galaxy) and Laura Birn as Demerzel (who is really very good indeed).  But no-one (as far as I can remember) does a bad job.

All in all, I liked it enough and I'll certainly be catching up with season 3, but would I recommend it?  Well, let's cover all the bases here.  If you suspect you're not going to like this then I can very much assure you that you won't.  If you thought you might like it but were put off by season 1, then I think it's worth giving it another go because it's a definite improvement.  If you struggled your way through season 1, then I suspect you've already watched it - if not, you definitely should.  And if you think you like might like it but haven't caught up on any of it, then you might as well give it a go, but pay careful attention and be prepared to struggle with season 1.  Whatever category you fall into, it's available on Apple+.

#20 (2023) - Surprisingly good, but not for everyone
#17 - Perfectly fine, but not even close to the best telly of the year