The series changes heavily once the foundation is set in motion, which is about episode 4ish? If Hari Seldon is still alive, you haven't gotten to the good part of the show yet (sorry for the spoiler but hes about to die soon based off what you're saying) The girl is not just smart, shes a mutant (they are like in the year 12,000, she isnt the first mutant) psychic who can see her own future. She is good at math so she is at haris level when it comes to psycohistory, which is telling the future using advanced math/ai or whatever the fk from the future.

Harry has a plan which involves dying to become a martyr which eventually should lead to the coming dark age he predicted only lasting 100 years instead of forever. Almost immediately sht fucks up and they deviate from the predicted timeline with it branching in another direction.

The writing gets good or at least very enterting and fast paced after hari seldon dies which is season 1 episode 2s ending I think.

It gets better over time, season 2 episode 4ish is where I got more into it. It's like a 7/10 season 1, 8/10 by the end of season 2, end of season 3 was a solid 8.5/10 for me, i like the direction it went. Season 1 is more regular scifi, 2 is more magical, and 3 is just star wars jedi sht. The series is like for all mankind with timeskips ocasionally. If you like empire, you get a different batch of the day, dawn, and dusk every season, which is probably my favorite part. (same actors playing different roles)

I mostly like that by season 3 you are 300+ years in the future from season 1 with some characters still around because of cryosleep, cloning, robots, etc.. I like seeing the world progress/fall over time.

It seemed like fairly standard tv stuff to me. Personally, if I'm watching a show that is grounded in the mundane eg the first season of true detective or breaking bad, i expect the dialogue to be very good and for the plot to be subtle and engaging in a complex way, but if I'm watching a SF show like a grandiose space opera then I have very different expectations. I am okay with some goofy dialogue, a lot of monologuing, more simple plot structure (since the setting is often complex in SF shows so it's often more of showing a familiar dynamic in a wildly unfamiliar context like star trek is all about), etc. All this ranting to say that since it's a galactic scale space opera i want crazy visuals, cool SF concepts, and an imagining of human mores and taboos set in a far flung future, I am willing to tolerate a lot more floppy plot and character interaction. My problem with this show in particular is just that it is a teeeeeeerrrible "adaptation" of someone else's work, but if they had just taken inspiration from Asimov and not used all the nouns and settings like they're trying to cajole the plot into show form, I would have been pretty happy with it. There's not a lot of original SF on TV and they clearly had enough ideas where they could have just walked their own path.

I think they just shouldn't have made it in fhe first place as it clearly wouldn't work as a show. Instead they just made everything up and used all the nouns. There are clearly some stories that can be adapted and some that cant and I hate the trend of just adapting things with big names attached to them to make money. Dune made for cool movies, Rendevous With Rama is begging to be adapted to the screen and I can't wait for it. Asimov is dialogue driven and concept heavy and just shouldn't be adapted.

(edit: stop adapting everything and just make up new stuff i.e. give me raised by wolves back you fucks!)