The study of space and time is a never-ending affair, but the same cannot be said about Cosmos the show is a short 13 episode miniseries. It’s something that everyone needs to see and discuss and integrate into their lives. This is an event, not a television series.Įvery once in a while, there comes a television series or film or piece of art that becomes an event. That’s too much time to even comprehend, but it’s a little easier with the help of Cosmos.Ģ. Humans have occupied a miniscule amount of the universe’s 13 billion years. Those lives that seem so incredibly long? Ha! That’s nothing compared to the history of time. Our huge planet is just a speck of dust in a cloud of nothingness in the never-ending ocean of the universe. One of the most interesting aspects of Cosmos is its ability to frankly tell us of our own insignificance. We succeed and we fail, we learn and forget, and we try to have some fun along the way. As a random human on Earth, we can (reasonably) expect to live for around 75 years. You’ll learn that you’re pretty insignificant in the scheme of things…Īnd science is sorry-not-sorry about that. It’s a remarkable journey and one you should do everything in your power not to miss. It’s everything that ever was or ever will be. It’s our shared history and our prospective future. It’s the story of us, but it’s more than that. Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey may just be the most important show you’ll see. Today, that role is filled by celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the man who’s also responsible for hosting the revival of the series. We can thank Sagan for being the driving force to bring the stars (no, not Kim Kardashian) back into the consciousness of America. The man may not be as well-known now, but until his death in 1996, he was the public face of astronomy and the cosmos. The original Cosmos was developed for television by astronomer Carl Sagan in 1980. The message is plain: there is a right side and a wrong side of intellectual history, and Cosmos is not afraid to say that science is on the right one.Gravity won a slew of Academy Awards, The Big Bang Theory is one of the hottest shows on TV, and Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is dropping more knowledge on Americans than a Mos Def verse. The centerpiece of the first episode is a lengthy animated story about the persecution of the 16th-century monk and astronomer Giordano Bruno. Imagination, Tyson says early on, is no substitute for the amazing reality of science, but they work (and play) together well here.Ī second case for the remake–which the series itself lays between the lines but the producers, including Sagan’s widow, have stated flat-out–is the recent political-cultural attacks on science, be it climate change or the teaching of evolution in schools. Elsewhere, it integrates playful digital tricks into Tyson’s narration–having an asteroid zip overhead as he walks through a forest and describes the extinction of the dinosaurs, placing him on a seashore as an animated amphibian saunters onto land. In a nod to Sagan’s original series, it places us on a CGI spaceship, whizzing through the universe as it visualizes Earth’s cosmic “address” (Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster, Observable Universe). First, it uses today’s technical firepower to bring its narrative alive. The docuseries’ debut episode engagingly makes the case for the reboot.
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