The Trailer for Foundation Season 3 Promises Pure Sci-Fi Chaos

Apple TV+ has shared the official trailer for the third season of Foundation, its glossy, blockbuster series reimagining Isaac Asimov’s original science-fiction novels. The trailer teases the birth of a new, galaxy-spanning crisis, the threat of a devastating war, and the rise of one of Asimov’s most notorious villains—the Mule. With the third season of Foundation now set to premiere on July 11, 2025, and air weekly episodes through September 12, Apple TV+ is promising a similarly high-concept, larger-than-life return to the sprawling future history Asimov created.

Foundation, which has taken some significant liberties with the source material, already told its story over a scale of centuries, with each season jumping forward by hundreds of years. The first season jumped 138 years, the second season dealt with a major inflection point known as the Second Crisis (which involved the threat of a new war between the Foundation and the dominant Galactic Empire), and the Foundation itself mutated into a more aggressive force, harnessing religious fanaticism to reach more planets. At the center of this change was the introduction of the “Mentalics,” an isolated colony of superpowered psionics.

Season 3, however, jumps forward even further, 152 years after the conclusion of the second season, and seems to place itself in the period of Asimov’s story known as the Third Crisis. Per Apple TV+’s official summary, the Foundation “has grown and changed beyond recognition since Hari Seldon’s time,” while the Cleonic Dynasty that rules the Galactic Empire is starting to “fray at the edges.” Opposing each other and threatened by a new external force that will upend the power balance, the Galactic Empire and the Foundation are forced to choose to ally despite their long history of conflict. That force is a new menace in the form of a warlord who “commands [s] the most powerful army in the galaxy and the power to turn enemy to ally with nothing more than a few words.” The trailer, however, gives us a better sense of this new, enigmatic villain.

The trailer features Hari Seldon in a voiceover, with his character reminding the audience that “Centuries ago, when we predicted the fall of the galaxy, the Foundation was created to save humanity. But the coming darkness was always the turning point.” He’s followed by Gaal Dornick, who also has emerged as one of the series’ most pivotal players, in the trailer warning, “We’re out of time.”

The Mule, the new villain of the piece and an iconic bad guy in Asimov’s Foundation novels, is played by Pilou Asbæk. In the trailer, the Mule exudes a sense of almost detached malevolence. “I can turn enemies into allies. Hate into love. It only takes a little nudge,” he ominously says. The trailer itself features the requisite explosions, gunfights, and collapsing cities, which the trailer implies The Mule’s power will upend throughout the galaxy.

The rest of the ensemble cast, including Lee Pace, Cassian Bilton, and Terrence Mann as the three-way imperial clone Trinity of Brother Day, Brother Dawn, and Brother Dusk, Jared Harris as Hari Seldon, Lou Llobell as Gaal Dornick, and Laura Birn as Eto Demerzel, all return for the season. Season 3 also sees the introduction of a new cast of characters, including Alexander Siddig as Dr. Ebling Mis, a Hari Seldon devotee who is a self-taught psychohistorian; Troy Kotsur as Preem Palver, a leader of a planet of psionic psychics; and Cherry Jones as Foundation ambassador Quent. Brandon P. Bell joins as Han Pritcher, Synnøve Karlsen as Bayta Mallow, Cody Fern as Toran Mallow, Tómas Lemarquis as the flamboyant Magnifico Giganticus, Yootha Wong-Loi-Sing as Song, and Leo Bill as Mayor Indbur.

Foundation may have been built on the idea of psychohistory—the capacity to predict the mass flow of human events through a combination of sociology and mathematics. But that understanding may not be enough this season. A war of emotions and irrationalities could be in Foundation’s future, with logic no longer the only factor in predicting the outcome of conflict.

The trailer, in many ways, is everything we know to expect from Foundation: grand scale, the space operatics, the high-production design work, the massive historical events, and the sheer spectacle of it all. But beyond that, what remains at the center of the third season is the looming threat. What is the true threat? How will the Galactic Empire and the Foundation band together? Can psychohistory weather the attack on reason that is The Mule? Is there any future that does not end in destruction?

Season 3 seems ready to test that hypothesis with even higher stakes, an even bigger scale, and more intricate and vivid world-building. Beginning with its July 11 premiere, the third season will air new episodes weekly through September 12. If the first two seasons of Foundation were the setup, the third is all about whether Hari Seldon’s plan was built to survive the truly unforeseeable. Foundation will have to face down not just the possible end of galactic order but also the end of the idea of order itself.