While watching the new Apple TV+ series Foundation, something that kept coming to mind was the memory of the character Roman (Martin Starr) from Party Down, firmly declaring to all who would listen that he was a writer of hard sci-fi, "fantasy is bullshit!" That's because if Roman were not a fictional cater-waiter, he'd be over the moon right now, because the downright sumptuous adaptation of Isaac Asimov's long-thought-impossible-to-adapt novel series is, essentially, a dream come true for him and his fellow fans of hard science fiction. As developed by David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman, Foundation is packed with huge ideas drawn from one of the greatest minds of the genre — but the good news is that it's not just Roman and his ilk who will be pleased, as the series also manages to mix in engaging characters and storylines that are all too relevant to today's viewers.

Premiering Friday, Sept. 24, the first season of the series begins relatively simply, with a young woman named Gaal (Lou Llobell) leaving her watery homeworld to travel to the galactic center, having won a math competition that gives her the chance to work with renowned scholar Hari Seldon (Jared Harris). However, when she arrives, she's informed that her future does not contain a life of peaceful academia, because Seldon's study of "psycho-history" has predicted that the Galactic Empire is about to collapse, and that for humanity's knowledge to persevere, extreme measures must be enacted. Statements like this have made Seldon a political enemy of the ruling body, a triad of clones known as Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton), Brother Day (Lee Pace), and Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann) descending from the first Emperor, Cleon the First. Because, after all, no one ruling a nation likes being told that it's on the brink of its inevitable demise.

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Image via Apple TV+

That plot summary above is a good place to start, but know that it barely covers the pilot. From Seldon's first declaration, massive changes occur that fling these characters across the galaxy in unexpected ways, especially as new generations are born and the Empire's descent into destruction continues.

In preparation to watch the series, I read the first of Asimov's novels, largely to get a sense of why it was deemed unadaptable for so long. While there are plenty of answers to that question, for me what stood out was that it was simply hard to engage with any of the characters, as not only were they relatively underdeveloped, but the nature of the story meant that by the time one potentially compelling protagonist had emerged, the story leapt forward another 30 years, to refocus on a new time period and a new group of people trying to cope with the empire's disintegration.

RELATED: Jared Harris on ‘Foundation,’ How the Series’ Superpower Is Math, and the Unique Way the Spaceships Were Constructed for the Actors

As a series, Foundation finds intriguing ways to work around this issue, ensuring that even as decades pass the core ensemble can still remain present, whether it be through cloning, cryosleep, or, well, some other means I won't spoil. While it's not a star-studded cast, there's still impressive heft to this group of actors — while Pace and Harris are key figures to the drama, the real leads of the show end up being Gaal and Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey), a young woman living on the planet Terminus decades after Seldon's initial declaration, whose search for understanding her place in the universe is all part of an unexpected twist in Seldon's plan.

It's hard to put into words just how good this show looks, thanks to a directing team of Rupert Sanders, Alex Graves, Jennifer Phang, and Roxann Dawson, some incredibly detailed production design, and the best visual effects artists money can buy. (Not to mention space battles!) It's an expensive show and you see every dollar on the screen, from the intricately designed foreign cities to the breathtaking intergalactic vistas. Of all the television I've watched over the last several years, this one is the first in a long time that made me yearn to see it on the biggest screen possible — do yourself a favor and don't watch Foundation on your phone. If any show deserved the theatrical release treatment, it's this one.

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Image via Apple TV+

With so many big ideas and complicated storylines involved, Foundation does at times feel a little muddled, because the drawback to having a number of simultaneously running narratives — some occurring in completely different time periods — is that invariably one is going to prove more interesting than another from time to time, to the point where it can occasionally be frustrating to have the series careen back and forth between everything that's happening. But that ultimately serves as a compliment to the series as a whole; that as big as its scope is, the viewer still gets hooked into individual characters, wanting to know their fate.

But perhaps the best aspect of Foundation, beyond all the money spent on sets and effects, is the amount of humanity that's allowed to thrive on screen. These characters are flawed, focused on their own goals, and thus feel alive; this is a show where people swear and have sex and more importantly care for each other, creating exactly the sort of emotional engagement that other, colder sci-fi projects can struggle to achieve. But that's essential to what makes the show work — when disaster looms, after all, we don't think about the monuments that might crumble. We think about the ones we love.

Grade: A-

The first two episodes of Foundation premiere Friday, September 24 on Apple TV+. New episodes will be released weekly.

KEEP READING: 'Foundation' Featurette Reveals the Gargantuan Task of Bringing Asimov's Influential Novel to the Screen in Apple TV's Adaptation