Yeah, the emperor part is the best part of the series and has nothing to do with the Foundation books. It is obvious that they wanted to make a series about that story, which is why it is the best part of the series.

The books are basically a collection of stories that take place over centuries/thousands of years. But in the series, you want familiar characters since you cant change characters every couple episodes, they did some insanely convoluted, inane things just so they can “connect” everything. It is like bad fanfiction.