It’s a foolproof formula: Take a historical figure, make them hot, disregard the facts, and you’ve got yourself a TV show.
Throw in jaw-dropping visuals that would put most blockbusters to shame-let alone any series outside of Thrones-and Foundation has all the makings of television’s next great megahit. But against all odds, the first season conveyed its big-picture ideas without losing sight of the affected individual relationships and conflicts. It wouldn’t have come as a surprise if Foundation had crumbled under the weight of its lofty ambitions-if anything, it’d be understandable. (With all the ground the show has to cover, it’s easy to see why Foundation long held a reputation for being unadaptable.) Based on Isaac Asimov’s celebrated science-fiction series of the same name, Foundation is concerned with nothing less than the impending collapse of a galaxy-wide civilization and the scientific minds preserving humanity’s most essential achievements for the generations to come: a centuries-spanning journey that’ll be told across eight seasons if showrunner David S.
It’s a testament to Foundation that, even as streamers scramble to create the next Game of Thrones, the Apple TV+ drama feels utterly daunting in its scope. These are The Ringer’s picks for the cream of the crop. All are worth celebrating at the end of a long, strange, uncertain year-one when we leaned on TV, even more than usual, to distract and transport us. Some are massive hits that grabbed hold of the zeitgeist others are hidden gems, possibly because you don’t subscribe to their streaming service. Our picks this year range from epic space dramas (plural!) to intimate character studies, from shrewd satires to wacky adventures. There’s little that unites the best TV shows of 2021, aside from their quality.