While The Expanse is one of the best hard sci-fi shows of the last two decades, one of its stars has since appeared in an Apple TV series that took the sub-genre even further. There are many different types of sci-fi shows, from Lost to Futurama to Star Trek: The Original Series. For every show that features outlandish and surreal sci-fi tropes with little explanation, like Legends of Tomorrow, there is another hard sci-fi show that goes out of its way to ground its imagined technologies and societies.
Whereas SyFy’s Killjoys focuses on delivering an entertaining adventure first and foremost, shows like SyFy’s six-season hit The Expanse are more interested in building a future that feels real and lived-in. Based on the novel series of the same name by author James S.A. Corey, a pseudonym for the sci-fi writers Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham, The Expanse was set in a future where humanity has colonized the rest of the solar system.
Within this new reality, the United Nations of Earth and Luna and the Martian Congressional Republic on Mars are locked in a political power struggle, and Thomas Jane’s cynical detective Josephus accidentally stumbles upon a conspiracy that implicates the entire ruling class. Blending the complex sci-fi tropes of Fringe or Battlestar Galactica’s reboot with the sprawling, polyphonic storytelling style of earlier drama shows like The Wire, The Expanse was arguably the most immersive hard sci-fi show ever until Apple TV’s Foundation came along.
The Crown star Jared Harris played the powerful Belter leader Anderson Dawes in seasons 1-2 of The Expanse, appearing in six episodes of the series. Where many of the movement’s members wanted to move toward political legitimacy, the intimidating Dawes was unafraid of direct and violent action against the group’s enemies. Harris’s role was a brief but pivotal one, but Foundation gave the star a bigger sci-fi part to sink his teeth into.
Debuting in 2021, Foundation was Apple TV’s risky attempt to bring an infamously dull set of Isaac Asimov novels to life on screen. The show’s complex plot takes a while to get going thanks to a lot of exposition. Foundation takes place in the far future, where the universe is controlled by three leaders known collectively as “Empire,” comprised of Emperor Cleon’s clone Brother Day, his successor, Brother Dawn, and their advisor Brother Dusk.
Harris’s eccentric professor, Hari Seldon, works on a theory of psychohistory with his gifted prodigy assistant, Lou Llobell’s Gaal Dornick. When her breakthrough proves that psychohistory can be used to predict the actions of human populations over time, the authority of Empire is called into question, and a sprawling, epic saga ensues. Blending The Expanse’s hard sci-fi stylings with the massive cast and many perspectives of HBO’s Game of Thrones, Apple TV’s hit is one of the genre’s most ambitious projects ever.
At a time when sci-fi TV has never been more ambitious, Foundation needed to do a lot to impress viewers. On Netflix, shows like 3 Body Problem, Sense8, and Altered Carbon had introduced viewers to similarly complex sci-fi premises, while Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale had offered audiences a similarly immersive vision of a future dystopia that was also adapted from a cult bestseller.
Thus, the bar was set high for Foundation, and this is without even mentioning Apple TV’s other sci-fi shows, from the upcoming Neuromancer to Silo, Severance, and Invasion. Fortunately, by marrying the political and moral complexity of The Expanse with a plot that takes its sci-fi elements seriously, Apple TV’s Foundation managed to become one of the best hard sci-fi shows ever made.
