Foundation has a woke score of 79/100, which means it is heavily driven by woke themes. Foundation is an Apple TV+ sci-fi drama adapting Isaac Asimov’s classic books. It follows psychohistorian Hari Seldon and exiles who build a foundation to preserve knowledge and shorten a predicted dark age during the Galactic Empire’s collapse, spanning centuries across three seasons with time jumps and new threats like the Mule. The series makes audience-visible changes including gender swaps of key characters Gaal Dornick and Salvor Hardin from white males to Black females, a BIPOC-heavy cast, and added queer storylines in season 2, with creator David S. Goyer publicly discussing these as intentional modern updates via a diverse writers’ room.

Is there DEI in Foundation?

The biggest factors in our score are Legacy character or canon changes, Representation / casting choices, Anti-woke backlash / 'too woke' complaints. Follow a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire.

TV Show review

Foundation

Woke Score

79/ 100

Lower is better

DramaSci-FiFantasy

Breakdown

Factors & Ratings

These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Foundation.

Representation / casting choices

Prominent gender swaps of original male leads Gaal Dornick and Salvor Hardin to Black female actresses, widespread race recasting, and creator statements framing these as deliberate diversity updates for modern appeal; BIPOC-heavy ensemble is audience-visible across all seasons.

68 / 100

Political / ideological dialogue

Philosophical discussions of history, power, prediction, and empire dominate with no explicit modern activist, partisan, or identity-politics lectures injected into the narrative.

12 / 100

Identity-driven story themes

Core premise stays true to Asimov’s empire-fall and knowledge-preservation arc, but gender/race changes to protagonists, expanded female leads, and added queer storylines (including season 2 gay romance) create noticeable identity emphasis beyond the source.

42 / 100

Institutional / cultural critique

The clone-based Empire is shown as rigid and doomed, with some robot faith-vs-reason exploration, but this remains classic sci-fi anti-tyranny storytelling without modern activist framing of patriarchy, whiteness, or Western institutions.

Foundation

Factors & Ratings

Summary

Main Cast

Director & Crew