What a fucking breath of fresh air. Never watched it because I thought it would be lame since there's never any fighting. But fuck me it stands in stark contrast to all other media. It shows a future I actually want to live in. Everything else is some dystopian, violence ridden, dim look on humanity. Don't get me wrong I love a good dystopia but wow.
Fuck now I'm a nerd send help.
I don't really read any of them as male or female or of any race (he doesn't dwell on those parts of the character, it's mostly general shape, trait, accent). The characters aren't really that important anyways, they're all archetypes used to help you understand the internal politics and conditions within the galaxy.
No character lasts more than like 5 chapters before history advances and you're into the next generation. Sometimes if they did something really important they'll be referenced later (Salvor Hardin) and occasionally diefied (Hari Seldon/ Karl Marx).
The show seems to be exploiting this by casting the characters with no regard for the pronouns used in the book. You could honestly change them for most and not even notice except for maybe some of the royals.
Oh, I heard someone saying that she thought it was like Asimov couldn't think of a future where women, like, do something. I'm not 100% sure what she meant by that. On the other hand she is a major TERF and was pissed at Asimov for dissing Orwell sooo idk maybe it didn't matter.