Why Foundation Season 3 Made One Major Change For Jared Harris' Hari Seldon [Exclusive]

This article contains heavy spoilers for "Foundation" season 3, episode 2.

Apple TV+'s "Foundation," with its epic, millennia-spanning scope and blockbuster movie visuals, is one of the best sci-fi shows on TV. It's an adaptation that brings an impossibly big book to life, and while there have been many changes made along the way (including a substantial change to Pilou Asbæk's The Mule this season), it's all in service of a show that knows when to prioritize spectacle for general audiences and when to tie back into the source material.

We saw this last part play out in the season 3 premiere, when Demerzel (Laura Birn) explained the history of robots in the "Foundation" universe and how the Robot Wars started. That was a brilliant piece of adaptation that linked to the books while still surprising audiences who've read Isaac Asimov's work.

Indeed, for the most part, this show has taken a bit of a remix approach to adaptation. It pulls from the books but completely reorganizes the plot and characters, rearranging them and revealing story details at different moments than the source material so as to create its own unique identity that nevertheless arrives at the same place as Asimov. One big deviation from the books that has given "Foundation" a different way to approach the story is the character of Hari Seldon. Unlike the books, where Hari dies extremely early in the story and only makes appearances via pre-recorded messages, Jared Harris' portrayal of the psychohistorian has been a big part of every season so far.

Until now. In the second episode of "Foundation" season 3, Hari Seldon dies, for real this time (the version that's not an AI living inside The Vault). According to Jared Harris, Seldon's goodbye was originally going to be more of a surprise, but he specifically asked for the script to be changed to avoid repetition.

"In the original scripts, Gaal woke up and saw that Hari's cryotube was empty and all covered with vines, and [she] rushes to find him and discovers he's 110 years old or something," the actor told /Film during a press event ahead of the release of season 3. "When I talked about it with the writers, I just said, 'It just bumps [for] me. It doesn't make sense,'" Harris continued, and he's absolutely right. As Harris puts it, the Mentallics of Ignis tried to kill Hari most of last season, and they clearly see Gaal (Lou Llobell) as their leader, waking her up first every year. So why would they listen to Hari and allow him to wake up first without consulting with Gaal? It makes no sense.

"They wouldn't do it unless she told them to do it, because she's their leader," Harris added. "I was less interested in doing this thing once again, that he doesn't share this information with Gaal. That they both realize that they've got a problem, that they don't have enough time, and that one of them is going to have to stay behind and get them there, and that it's got to be him, because she's more valuable. That, as a scene, is going to be more interesting and more impactful to watch."

As Harris explained, every season, the writers hand out the scripts to the actors and invite them to sit down and share their thoughts about it, which led to Harris suggesting this change to Seldon's sacrifice which ended up being on the show. As it stands, having Hari Seldon make the sacrifice rather than do yet another surprise death (as happened in both season 1 and season 2) is a better idea, and it signals a big shift in the series.

"It hands the baton over to Gaal, and that it's probably her story now," Harris said. "She is the main character in the story, she's the hero of the story." Now, Gaal is no longer just defined by her relationship with Salvo or Hari, but is free to become the proper leader of the Second Foundation as they face their biggest threat ever in The Mule.

"Foundation" is streaming now on Apple TV+.