Does this mean non Apple-TV folks are shut out for good?
Yeah, in the first chapter of the book “Foundation” (written in the 1950s as an introduction to the series) Seldon has something that sounds very much like a graphing calculator, with the ability to do symbolic operations.
Um, that’s not how I remember it. It’s a character other than Seldon who reappears and reveals himself to be R. Daneel Olivaw.
I assume you’re replying to @blindboyard - and you’re right. Olivaw and Seldon are different folks (though they did know each other).
At the very end of “Foundation & Earth”, Trevize & company meet up with R. Daneel Olivaw, cementing the union of the Foundation series and Robot series that had been building for the entire book. Then Dr. A. did an about face and wrote the 2 prequel novels, where we find that R. Daneel has been guiding human history pretty much since R. Giskard turned everything over to him in Robots & Empire. In the Foundation prequels, R. Daneel guides & supports a young Hari Seldon with his development of psychohistory.
It has been DECADES since I’ve read the Foundation books, but I do remember reading this book and being very disappointed. Asimov contorted himself terribly to try to make the two series be in one universe. I say let them be separate.
Apple TV PLUS is a streaming service you can view on PCs, tablets and phones (including Android), smart TVs…anything modern. You aren’t limited to the physical Apple TV device, which is what I assume you were asking.
Supposedly Seldon’s device was the first appearance in fiction of a hand-held electronic calculator. It wasn’t much like modern ones, though, in that he operated it by turning knobs.
I was actually wondering if Apple+ programs ever wind up on physical media (DVD/Bluray), or are they like Amazon.
Good question. It only launched last autumn. I watched two of their shows, For All Mankind and The Morning Show in November, but I can’t find any DVD release dates for them yet.
I would not hold my breath for that happening, probably ever.
One thing that worries me is that this seemed to be an Apple commercial first, and a trailer second… Let’s hope that that’s not the order of priority for the actual series.
I couldn’t agree more. It seemed very strained… and I never bought that Hari Seldon would’ve served as prime minister or chancellor or whatever before he developed psychohistory. That’s the kind of thing about his past that would certainly have been mentioned in the first chapter of Foundation, as he’s under scrutiny by the Imperial Commission of Public Safety.
I am actually very excited about the presence of Olivaw in this series. Asimov had two, more like three, separate historical space operas on the go, and towards the end of his life he combined them into one. Olivaw was an éminence grise in the background of the united history, and this series seems likely to run with that.
I’m even happier that Olivaw turns out to be a woman- Olivaw was a robot, and could have looked like anything. A giraffe, if necessary. We need to see what a truly advanced technological civilisation could do - something Asimov only hinted at until the last books, which I enjoyed much more than the early ones.
Being currently in the midst of reading the original trilogy, do you know what’s missing in that trailer?
Smoking.
Almost every character seems to be constantly lighting up or flicking butts into atomic ashtrays. I wonder if they’ll keep that in… 
Anyway, looking forward to it.
Just another thought. I imagine we’ll see a number of characters reimagined as female (such as Dornick in the trailer). I’m not sure there’s a single female character in the first book (save maybe a wife or two), although F&E has a strong-ish female character (Baytu).
Along with the smoking, I imagine the stereotypical gender roles of 50s sci-fi to be the main sticking points for translating the books for a modern TV audience. As with all sci-fi, Asimov’s was very much of its time.
Actually, I’m okay with changing the gender of characters. In most cases the gender is immaterial to the plot. And Asimov was not prejudiced in believing women incapable of action: in particular Arkady Darell is an important, strong character. More female characters would also fit in with the post-trilogy volumes that were more balanced: for example the female mayor in the fourth volume.
Agreed. Similarly, Liet Kynes will be played by an actress in the upcoming Dune remake.
The most famous female in Asimov’s works is Susan Calvin in I, Robot. Asimov based her loosely on Mary Caldwell, one of his chemistry professors at Columbia. Susan Calvin is a rather old-fashioned model for what women who go into any profession were supposed to be like back then. She never gets married. She’s portrayed as being unhappy that no man she’s interested in is interested in her.
Definitely a prim-spinster vibe for Susan Calvin, although she was also ferociously smart and not afraid to criticize the dumber men around her.