Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey Recap – Standing Up in the Milky Way
Carl Sagan's groundbreaking series returns.
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is just what the universe ordered. Primetime network television rarely explores interesting real-world affairs, and when it does, it’s usually true crime or whatever happens on 60 Minutes.
I’m obviously not talking about “reality television,” as no one is learning anything from that. Enter Seth MacFarlane, who has built an empire by filthily referencing the 1980s through teddy bears and Sunday nights on Fox.
We at GFR give him all the credit for spearheading a revival of Carl Sagan’s landmark science series Cosmos. But it was a monumental challenge, for audiences today have more insight into our universe than any generation in the past, all thanks to the Internet.
Keeping Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey fresh and interesting was only as difficult as hiring astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson as the presenter and compiling a retina-popping collection of space photography and CGI eye candy. The final product, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, is a bite-sized lesson on the universe that grows exponentially each time you chew on the information given.
I don’t think Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey could ever outshine Sagan’s original work because Sagan was more interested in reminding us that we are both special and impossibly tiny in this universe. But Fox’s series is already a billion times more visually appealing because this show aims to remind viewers that space is cool and we should all be a lot more interested in science. We lost Sagan’s one-on-one and took in Tyson’s high school lecture.
But that’s okay with me because Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey needs to be something more. It needs to go everywhere that Sagan couldn’t back in the late 1970s when he was pulling all of this together. If bombast has to enter the picture to remind people that life is more than just pop culture and social media updates, so be it. (By the way, if you guys could retweet this article, that would be super.)
Though Tyson tells us things that may come as new information to many viewers, anyone with a driven interest in science already knows everything being said here. So,Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey becomes a high-definition trip across our world into the titular cosmos that remains stunning.
Even when the camera is centered on Tyson’s face, fiery dynamism is happening on either side of his cheeks. I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I said this was the most beautiful thing I’ve seen on TV since the Beijing Games opening ceremonies.
So, what are we looking at the whole time? Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is segmented in a way that keeps the information memorable and exciting, where the commercial breaks all come after Tyson fades out on a minor cliffhanger. We are introduced to a sleek new take on the original series Spaceship of the Imagination, and the Cosmic Calendar experiences a digital evolution.
From our home planet, we quickly explore the rest of our solar system, then set out into the farthest reaches of observable space, examining each layer of our “Cosmic Address.”
With flat, blunt animation, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey tells the before-his-time story of Giordano Bruno, whose assertions that the universe contained other worlds were met with a most brutal rebuttal. (No one expects the Roman Inquisition!) We then travel back to the Big Bang (sunglasses not included), through the Oort Cloud, beyond the Milky Way galaxy, and down to the same California desert where Sagan spoke to us over 30 years ago.
When Sagan’s legacy is the focus, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey returns to its roots, as a more grounded Tyson recalls how his life was changed forever after a visit with Sagan, who became his mentor. The locations and voiceovers are great, and I hope they continue to pop up in each episode. It’s equally great to see things that could never have been known as the first series was being produced, such as Voyager I‘s legendary voyage and Pluto’s demotion to just another “outer planetary body.”
I hopeCosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey only gets better, as its starting point was as strong as I hoped. (I secretly worried it would be a disaster.) So long as humanity remains prevalent in the spaces between the stars, I think we’ll have something inspirational to look forward to for the next block of Sunday nights—no flash photography on the Spaceship of the Imagination.
