The Expanse has its own problems, though. Namely, that a lot of the acting is terrible. Foundation at least, to me, has some strong acting and interesting character relationships.
But there was a scene in which Chrisjen Avasarala gives an “imminent war” speech extremely sarcastically, like Homer to Marge in the bedroom.
I figured they’d address in the episode what her secret plan was for that speech.
Turns out: no plan, the actress wasn’t being sarcastic. She was going for strength and gravitas.
It makes no sense to me how an otherwise high quality show has those scenes. Surely the director could have gotten a non-sarcastic take. And if not, they’d have to minimize the actress’s role.
As it is, every scene with her in it breaks the fourth wall and reminds me I’m watching actors acting in front of cameras, rather than a visual narrative.
o Firefly - no brainer. Brilliant.
o Battlestar Galactica - Has some issues mid-late course, but still pretty end-end enthralling.
o Dark (I keep re-watching this over and over every few months. I have many notebook pages full of analysis. Seriously good SciFi for the most part.)
o Altered Carbon (mostly Season 1 - but Season 2 was okay)
Not really science fiction (even bigger themes explored) but far superior in terms of overall quality of work/screen writing, and has a similar "concept" that a lot of supposed science fiction shows have - "The Leftovers" - Which I put on my list of the 5 most brilliant things on Television (Sopranos/The Wire/Deadwood/Breaking Bad being the other 4).
I'll give a honorable mention to stuff I loved but I can't totally recommends:
o Travelers - I'm a sucker for a good Time Travel Show.
o Foundation - Pretty - I watch it, but I totally would never recommend it.
o Fringe - Wow - was totally into this. Definitely an acquired taste though.
o Raised By Wolves - Interested in where it's going. Could entirely suck eventually I guess.
o Black Mirror - Hit and miss, though hits often enough that I keep coming back to it.
o WestWorld - I mean, we all watched it. Season 1 was *awesome* if you watched it in realtime and didn't read all the internet commentary when the aha moment hit you. Season 2 was pretty good as well IMHO. Season 3 was just dreck where the screen writing tanked *but* it paid an *awesome* homage to the very last of the Foundation Novels to bring it all home.