The foundation of a good story is the characters, not the backdrop!

Denise and I have been watching the Foundation series on Apple+. So far, I'm finding the series terrifically slow and the narrative disjointed and difficult to follow, though the scenery and effects are lovely eye-candy. I would have preferred that they'd concentrated on hiring better writers and getting better scripts, and spent less of the budget on the eye-candy. More emphasis on characters and their interactions, less on "ain't this pretty?"