It could be done as a series of vignettes, for example, as 6 episode series, with each series centred around each crisis. That would give you 4-5 hours - or 2.5 Mrs Doubtfires - to do what Asimov does in around 60 pages (depending on crisis).

I don't understand the argument that this is impossible to do, pretty much every film you will have ever seen will have had a shorter runtime than 5 hours, and handled all aspects of character introduction, motivation, conflict, growth, and resolution, within than time too.

I am not saying it has to be identical or a word for word adaptation - I have no issues what so ever with gender swapping Hardin - but as another poster points out, having Seldon live on (other than as recordings getting increasingly divorced from reality) directly rejects the core premise of the book, which is a refutation of the great man hypothesis.

I think the closest you get is B5's Deconstruction of Falling Stars.

I tried to watch Foundation, mostly because Asimov is one of those writers whose style I can't stand in his actual books (his characterization is really flat--you could tell he was far more interested in his ideas and the characters were just pawns on a stage), and I've had a few cases where books I couldn't finish were very watchable on screen. Also, I was following Jared Harris from the Expanse to Foundation in the hopes of seeing something awesome.

But what I saw, and what I remembered from the books, didn't add up. Nor did it suck me in on its own merits, like some other adaptations have.

The first two episodes are the most gorgeous sci-fi tv production I've ever seen. Beyond that it's a bit shakier but it's definitely watchable.

The Cleons is literally the only reason I continue to watch the show.

The show is so well done I don't even mind that it's not like the books