(prompting the consistent question, how the hell does one even adapt it?).
And yet, it isn’t the familiar faces but an unfamiliar one that is worth noting in the most recent episode. Just three minutes into episode 2, “Shadows in the Math,” we get a rapid-fire account of how the Second Foundation evolves over the course of the 151 years between season 2 (when the mentalic colony is set up) and season 3. In the first sequence where Gaal wakes up, she’s greeted by a woman who says, “Awaken, sleeper. The First Speaker welcomes you home.” Gaal’s lime-light soaking role (which is artificially extended in the adaptation) makes it easy to overlook the importance of this character, and in a few short minutes, we see the initial First Speaker shuffled off, replaced by Preem Palver (Troy Kotsur).
At first glance, this implies a sense of frailty and irrelevance to the position. But nothing could be further from the truth. The First Speaker isn’t just a spokesperson for the Second Foundation, or someone to do the bidding of Gaal and Hari when they’re not in cryosleep. They serve a very important function, one that will only grow with time.
