Yeah, the difference to Foundation is baffling to me. I can only assume people developed strong feelings growing up with the LotR movies, but nobody is particularly engaged with Foundation (and tbh it's not an easy or fun book to try and adapt). Personally I think they would have done better to start with Prelude, which not only sets the scene, but has action, ass-kicking female characters etc. Instead they created something incredibly dull and slow, the highlight of which is the intergenerational psychodrama of the emperors which is entirely made up.
Prelude was Asimov himself making a prequel, there was another one and some sequels to the original trilogy. Also the books are connected with the robot series.
There are some differences in tone. But there are some coherent ideas. Religion is seen as bad, a tool for control. There are mental powers, but that's not magic, just advanced humans. Science is mostly presented as a good thing, with serious dangers that must be sorted, but there's a general techno-optimism that inspired several generations of readers.
In the books we side with robots' nearly human condition. In tv show there's a question if cloned humans have souls. Religion is powerful and sometimes shown in a positive light. Humans can predict the future, not with science but with magical powers. All the dome thing is not science but a deception. A confident merchant character like Mallow, is now police with a tormented mind and now a personal tragedy.
If you have the money and the inventive to create a big budget show like that, do it from scratch. Don't mutilate others's work just for the name.
