Why is his story, animated here, so interesting? But Cosmos picks up with the help of executive producer Brannon Braga‘s sci-fi touches and some early animation that follows the plight of Giordano Bruno, a Dominican friar and astronomer who made one very, very bold guess of an idea about the infinite nature of the world that got him in loads of trouble with the Catholic Church in his native Italy. This very first episode has so much information in it that the first 15 minutes seem like a study course and might prove slow to some folks as Tyson diligently starts explaining the solar system piece by piece. If they don’t hold up - as faith often doesn’t under scientific examination - then those ideas are tossed out. To reach conclusions, we must “test ideas by experiment and observation,” Tyson notes. Tyson clearly states in the opening minutes of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey that the study of our world is based on only science. I know that sounds crazy, but there is strong observational evidence to support the big bang theory.”Įvidence or not, the guess here is a whole lot of people who don’t understand science or don’t want to try to understand it based on their religious beliefs are going to have a hard time coming to terms with this new Cosmos.īut that’s what makes it so thrilling. “Space itself exploded in a cosmic fire, launching the expansion of the universe and giving birth to all the energy and all the matter we know today. “Our entire universe emerged from a point smaller than a single atom,” Tyson says. How do you think this part of the show is going to go over, as Tyson explains how the world was created by the Big Bang Theory: So the idea that Tyson gets an hour on a Sunday night to blow your mind with science is, in fact, mind-blowing. the other without much openness to divergent thought or understanding opposing values. And because the Internet makes everything a water-cooler conversation that is often fractured into one side vs. And the United States is a strongly religious country. To essentially teach science on primetime on a broadcast network in 2014 is amazingly bold. While the show - and Sagan - became immensely popular, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage was essentially an idea shared (or not) in a more private, less polarized time. Remember that Sagan’s original was also 13 parts, but it appeared on PBS and it premiered in 1980. OK, but let’s back up a minute to what makes Cosmos something truly profound. Set your DVRs and bring the kids if you have them.
Cosmos a spacetime odyssey episodes series#
on the National Geographic Channel and will be, according to Fox, the largest global launch of a television series ever because it will be on 123 Fox-branded channels in 125 countries and 90 NatGeo channels in over 170 countries and 45 languages. The series will also air on Monday, March 10 at 10 p.m. One would assume that will continue and we’ll all be the better for it.
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With a mix of Tyson’s magnetic personality and ability - like Sagan before him - to make science understandable to people who aren’t scientists, plus whimsical but informative use of animation and a visual device called the “cosmic calendar,” Cosmos bites off an enormous chunk of ambitious knowledge-spreading in the first episode.
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey has the stamp of authenticity not just because Tyson is involved but also because Sagan’s wife, Ann Druyan, is an executive producer, writer and director. There’s so much intriguing information, possibility and daring inside the modern-day version of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which updates Carl Sagan‘s epically important Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, that there’s also a risk of overlooking the simple parts of it.Ĭase in point: The series kicks off with a creative, visually impressive 45 minutes built around rock star astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and exists on the Fox network in primetime for 13 hours because Seth MacFarlane( Family Guy) wanted it to and because he has the power to make something that incongruous actually happen.