Apple’s “Foundation”: Part 2 -Misery seeks company
I would not have spared a second thought on Foundation, if it weren’t for the other high profile failures that Ihad seen on streaming services:
“See”: A post apocalyptic Action Adventure, where everybody but a select few are blind. The idea of Seeing as a superpower is compelling — except that every viewer (!) knows what seeing is capable of. That the main protagonist with star power is blind does not help either. The resulting story is maddening , as the viewer is continuously shouting at the screen because the seeing characters stumble around like blind while being saved by a blind character.
“For all mankind”: What if whe had continued to go to the moon? A nice premise, but obviously the producers found out, that shooting events in space is expensive and reduced that part to minutes per episode, instead showing personal dramas that not only look like playing in the 70s, but feel like they had been produced in the 70s. Cheesy and cheap.
What have the series in common? They are all on Apple Tv and they have been extended despite being so obviously flawed.
Silly Money
Years ago there was a term in the american film industry: “silly german money” It was termed for german tax constructs, that needed film projects which made a loss in order to reduce the tax of doctors and lawyers. The loop holes have been closed, the idea lives on.
The silly money of today comes from MeToo Streaming services. And the most exploitable is Apple TV. Unlike Netflix, who had an early start and soon expanded to producing its own content, Apple startet its service at a time where all the large content creators already hoarded their best productions for their own services. Since Apple positions itself as a provider of premium content, there were in a bind. The remedy: Money - lots of it. According to Wikipedia Apple spend from 2016 to 2019 6 Billion Dollars for future content. Since this is still pocketchange in comparison to Apples 257 Billion Dollar of cash, they were willing to gamble with it, buying productions other companies were hesitant to touch.
What happened to Foundation?
I’m not an industry expert, but I can make an educated guess. Game of Thrones like titles should have been the rage in 2015–16. Skydance Production sets out to search for an SF analogon and immediately find Foundation: The right size with 9 books, much acclaim but old enough to be affordable and an owners that made not much problems when the film did not look like the book (Bicentennial, I Robot…) They start to pitch to their usual customers, which hesitate since the material is known to be difficult. Apple TV does not care and orders.
What has been shown to Apple TV? My guess: A lot of Artwork, screen demos and the scripts of the first two episodes. So the parts that turned out be OK. Apple had most likely demanded changes, maybe the centering around the emperor, more intrigue and flashy space sequences. Maybe they demanded the stable cast for better marketing. They definitely demanded to rush the production as they needed the content ASAP.
Before signing the contract that the production company had all the time to develop the plot, but only with its own money. After the signing they had ample of money but no time. So the scripts of the following 8 episodes had to be written in a rush, with constant changes from all sides. I guess that the original content of two episodes had to be scrapped almost completely in order only to include the dumb spaceship, which created other plotholes that also had to be fixed and so on... The result is a mess.
And it is a problem that can be seen in other content from Apple TV. Rushed scripts, that lack cohesion, have plot holes that stare one in the eye (pun intended) and contain cheap cookie cutter subplots. Other genres and more episodical series might fare better with the pressure, SF and especially SF with a strong story arc needs at least a little amount of due diligence.
Fake it till you make it
It’s not that Apple doesn’t know that these shows have serious flaws. But until they have a strong rooster of Apple exclusives or get their equivalence of Game of Thrones, they have to pretend that they already have top titles, which includes ordering new content. The numbers have to be really desastrous for Apple to discontinue one of the current pretend flagships.
It works, even if it doesn’t
This sounds like Apple TV is sitting on a pile of crap that nobody wants to see. But that is not correct. The series are still entertaining if you are are casual viewer or watch it while doing other chores. They are a good reason for marketing campaigns to attract new users. Many viewers will never come around to see them but are impressed that Apple pulls out one interesting sounding series after the other.
From the perspective of the streaming provider, these series work. They bring in money. They bring reputation. Entertaining fans is optional.
Conclusion
The two part analysis has been very harsh. Do not get me wrong: I have the utmost respect for the actors writers and creators for these series as they fight to get at least a part of their vision onto the screen despite all odds. I don’t think that these people do not know what they are doing. But serious errors have been made again and again and at the End the customers did not get the product they deserved. That’s not what I expect from Apple and I do not expect it from Apple TV.
