Read the books a very long time ago and the details of the books are quite faded. People had said the books could never be made to film as the story spans centuries and character appear and disappear quickly. Thus, any adaptation to TV/film had to make adjustments and the show runners and writer's room have done so.
Have watched the first 8 episodes.
What do you think so far 8 episodes in?
Spoiler free portion: the pace has picked up for the better and Lee Pace is the most interesting actor in this show’s galaxy. The story arc around the cloned emperors and their long time adviser Demerzel has been the strongest. The Salvor Hardin and Gaal Dornick arcs have been moving in fits and starts. The writer’s room has a lot of balls in the air and where do they take them to set up season 2?
Spoiler containing comments below.
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My reaction so far has been mixed. With serialized story telling, you know they are putting out little bread crumbs here and there but as such the pacing is very uneven. Episode 7 moved things along nicely but many of the episodes leading up to it dragged on.
As with many science fiction shows there are "philosophy of mind" plot points. In the show, there is a discussion about whether clones have souls as highlighted by one faction in the Luminist religion. Whether is is a true "in universe" doctrinal point or whether it is a convenient political point by that faction's leader to justify opposition to the cloned emperors is hard to say.
Would clones have "souls?"
In one sense, clones are like identical twins except separated by age. No one who believes in the existence of souls would question whether identical twins have souls and as such would say future hypothetical cloned humans have souls.
The other "soul" question is in regards to the status of Hari Seldon's hologram. If I heard the dialog correctly, his thoughts were collected by a device and then transferred to a computer onboard his spacecraft. If all the functions of his mind can be transferred to a computer device then it would seem the writer's room believes the mind is purely a physical phenomena whether is it mechanical computer system or the biological computer of the brain. In which case there are no souls to transfer to a new body by either reincarnation or resurrection. However, the hologram does seem "glitchy." That could be due to a problem in the computer or there is more to Seldon's soul than just the electronic processes transferred from his biological brain to a computer processing/memory core or electronic "brain."
Of course, there is also the question of whether Demerzel, a robot, has a soul. The Luminist leader who called the cloned emperor soul-less seemed to think so!
Another interesting thing the writers are trying to do is portray the role of religion in an obviously high technology Galaxy spanning empire. The trope is normally that with the advance of science and technology, religious thought would disappear. However, the writers have largely placed the religions (the rulers on Synax and the Luminists) of the series in the context of their political influence as plot points. Observers of culture believe religious adherence is not likely to disappear as it provides a context for big picture questions of WHY while science and technology are good at How and What questions. And so in the show, the details of these faiths are sketched only to the level of detail needed to justify their political actions. Episode 8 is the ultimate example, where the emperor subverts, in a bold gamble, the religious ritual of the Luminists for his political ends proving his “soul” is a very dark and self-serving one.
Episode 8 can spur a conversation about the significance of religious ritual and the value of a “spectacular” religious experience. Religious faith is comprised of at least 4 components: beliefs (how and why thing are the way they are), a moral code, a community of fellow believers, and ritual (practices that advance the previous 3 aspects).
And so the big story line in Episode 8 is the emperor going to the Spiral Pilgrimage. In the story, 50% of the pilgrims die in the ritual. My perspective is that religious faith calls its adherents to live out their faith as a lifestyle and that it may cost them in their lives literally (outright persecution) or figuratively (disadvantaged social minorities). However, carrying out a specific religious ritual to the point of death is not equal to a lifestyle.
The other observation I’d make is that spectacular religious experiences are not required for authentic faith. Moses saw a burning bush but most believers have not had such dramatic experiences and yet would one doubt their commitment to belief? And so the dramatic conclusion of episode 8 says little actually about genuine belief and is mostly about the extent of the power hungry self-centeredness (in an old fashioned word, sinfulness) of the emperor.
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