You’re Not Ready for Foundation Season 3’s Big Time Jump

Apple TV+ has dropped the first trailer for the third season of Foundation, its award-nominated, big-budget sci-fi epic loosely inspired by the Isaac Asimov book of the same name. The trailer, just one minute long, hints at the series going into overdrive with brand-new planetary vistas and civilizations on a galaxy-wide scale, as it chases one of the author’s most powerful and mysterious villains: The Mule.

Foundation season 3 premieres on Apple TV+ on July 11, 2025, and will be released weekly through September 12, 2025. Each season so far has dropped all at once, with ten episodes each.

Foundation Season 3 Comes Even Further Ahead in Time

Building off the early success of the Foundation series, which scored an Emmy nomination for its first season and has won fans with its forward-thinking, big-budget vision, the third season of Foundation is an exciting watch even before it airs. The trailer for the third season, in particular, looks even more visually opulent and eye-catching than the first two, with a world-destroying fight scene at its heart.

As with the first two seasons of Foundation, the series remains only very loosely connected to the original book series. While that series was set throughout millennia, the TV show has leaned into massive time-skips to transition from act to act. While the first season covered a few decades of Foundation history and ended with a jump forward of 138 years, the second season featured another large time skip to a point in history called the Second Crisis, where the specter of war hovers between the Foundation and the central power of the Galactic Empire. The Foundation has since embraced a more aggressive stance, weaponizing its religion as propaganda to subvert and colonize other worlds. A new race of power brokers has also entered the picture, a secret colony of psionic, or mind-powered, people known as the “Mentalics.”

Season 3 of Foundation, by comparison, features a much larger time skip still. While season 2 ended a little over a century after its beginning, season 3 takes place 152 years after the ending of season 2, setting the entire series on the galactic-wide crisis period known in the books as the Third Crisis. According to an official synopsis provided by Apple TV+, in that time, the Foundation has grown both more entrenched in its power and more widespread geographically, while the Empire of the Cleonic Dynasty that originally founded it has grown complacent and on the verge of collapse. Threats both internal and external have set the two forces against each other, leaving the galaxy as a whole vulnerable to an outside force unlike anything before: The Mule, a warlord who is as likely to use sheer military force to achieve his aims as he is to manipulate the will of others.

“I knew that this was a turning point. A turning point against the coming darkness,” Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) intones in the trailer. “But the Mule was more than a turning point. The Mule was the turning point.” Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) ups the ante: “We’re out of time.”

Who Is the Mule? His Mysterious Power Sets Him Apart

The Mule, played by Pilou Asbæ k, is a truly unique type of villain, with a special ability to manipulate the human brain. The trailer shows him, after all the destruction and world-destroying power displays, sitting serenely in a throne room before the emperor, a defeated enemy of the empire, before his reprogramming at the hands of the Mule. “I can turn enemies into allies. Hate into love,” he says with a disturbing smile. “I can do it with anyone. It only takes a little nudge.”

Coupled with all the fiery action, destruction, and the matter-warping superpowers of other key players in the series, Asbæ k’s portrayal of the Mule is sure to be a boon for the show.

Pace, Bilton, and Mann Round Out the Season 3 Cast of Key Players

Lee Pace, Cassian Bilton, and Terrence Mann are returning to reprise their roles as the three clones, Brother Day, Brother Dawn, and Brother Dusk. Jared Harris is returning for a central role as Hari Seldon, Lou Llobell will return as Gaal Dornick, and Laura Birn as Eto Demerzel.

Season 3 of Foundation, meanwhile, also looks to feature a large cast of new players for characters both central and peripheral. Alexander Siddig will be playing Dr. Ebling Mis, a Seldon devotee and a self-taught psychohistorian. Troy Kotsur is joining the cast as Preem Palver, the head of a psychic-dominant planet. Cherry Jones will be seen as Foundation ambassador Quent. Brandon P. Bell will be playing Han Pritcher, while Synnø ve Karlsen will appear as Bayta Mallow, Cody Fern as Toran Mallow, and Tómas Lemarquis as the flamboyant Magnifico Giganticus. Yootha Wong-Loi-Sing and Leo Bill will be appearing as Song and Mayor Indbur, respectively.