Carl Sagan revolutionized popular astronomy with his book and TV show "Cosmos", which had an audience of hundreds of millions of people. We’ve learned a lot about our Universe since then, and we’re overdue for a modern version of Sagan’s show. So I’m pleased to find out that Neil Tyson will be hosting a revamped and updated version of "Cosmos"!
He’s working with Ann Druyan (Sagan’s widow and herself a science popularizer), Steve Soter (who also worked on the original show), and Seth MacFarlane, creator of "Family Guy". I know, that may sound weird, but MacFarlane is a big science fan, a friend of Neil’s, and commonly puts a lot of science into his shows.
The new show is being created by National Geographic and Fox, and will air on the latter in prime time. To circumvent the expected comments on this, note that Fox News is separate from Fox TV, so the irony is there but perhaps not as strong as you might think.
I’m looking forward to this new show. "Cosmos" had a profound effect on hundreds of millions of people, but times have changed. I’ll be curious to see how they update the look and feel of the program for the modern audience.
This is great news. Carl Sagan's Cosmos on PBS was one of my must watch shows back in 1980.
Now I get to watch it all, again. I think Neil deGrasse Tyson is an excellent choice as narrator/host.
I loved Cosmos. One of the things I'll never forget about it is when Carl Sagan stood next to an oak and talked about how living beings from other planets will be totally different from life on Earth.
"The oak and I are close relatives," said Carl Sagan. "But no being from another planet will be the least bit related to me."
Admittedly I'm quoting this entirely from memory, so I'm sure I got some of it wrong. I do believe that I managed to get the gist of it correct, however.
Apparently the idea that humans and oak trees are related is an "alien concept" to Google, because when I googled "human and oak" and "close relatives: human and oak" and the like, I got nothing useful. This is not an oak, but a Giant Sequoia. Oh well. This tree, too, is closely related to us humans, because all life on the Earth is related.
When I googled "human and oak" I got this image, however. It is apparently a portrait of an alien who had a run-in with poison oak! The image was made by Don Seegmiller.
I think Carl Sagan's point was that aliens will not be like this one. They will not be distorted versions of us humans.
Personally I loved Cosmos when I could see it on Swedish television in the 1980s, and I would love to see it again.
Ann
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 11:46 am
by Voyager3
I loved Neil DeGrasse Tyson in some of the early episodes of History Channel's "The Universe".
He dissapeared from later episodes, and I always wondered if it was because that show started going down the road of populist sensationalism ("The 10 Worst Storms in the Universe!", "The End of the Earth: Deep Space Threats to our Planet", "Cosmic Apocalypse!", "Asteroid Attack!", and from season four: "10 Ways to Destroy the Earth!", where obviously uneasy astronomers were asked to pick their "favorite" scenario for the destruction of the planet!).
Prof. Tyson forever endeared himself to me when he said (I'm quoting from memory): "I want to be there when a probe is sent through the ice of Europa, and a creature comes up to the camera's lens, and licks it!"
I'm very glad he's part of a new and revamped Cosmos.
I think Carl would be pleased.
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 12:54 pm
by neufer
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Ronald Lee Ermey: the perfect narrator for the new Cosmos show
I'm afraid that I must point out a fatal flaw in the original Cosmos series.
Every time that I sat my son in front of the TV screen to watch the show Cosmos Carl Sagan's mellifluous voice would invariably have my boy sound asleep in the first 30 minutes.
And I'm afraid that my son would have fared no better listening to Neil DeGrasse Tyson's mellifluous voice.
What they really need someone like
Ronald Lee Ermey to narrate
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 3:46 pm
by owlice
I was in Borders (~~ sigh ~~) last night, and the 30th anniversary large-format hard-copy Cosmos was not only specially-priced at $14.99, because of the (~~ sigh ~~) circumstances, it's 25% off that marked price. They had a fair number of copies of it, so it may still be around when the discounts deepen.
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 5:10 pm
by ExplorerAtHeart
Love Tyson, with the same writers, i hope its as poetic as the last one.
For me, nothing willreplace Carl Sagans work.
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 10:56 pm
by rstevenson
owlice wrote:I was in Borders (~~ sigh ~~) last night, and the 30th anniversary large-format hard-copy Cosmos was not only specially-priced at $14.99, because of the (~~ sigh ~~) circumstances, it's 25% off that marked price. They had a fair number of copies of it, so it may still be around when the discounts deepen.
I actually had to Google for "news about Borders Books" to understand what you were sighing about. Now I know. But I'm afraid I'm one of those whose collective actions are causing the closure of book stores. I've purchased a few dozen books in the past year or so, but only one of them was printed on paper, and it was ordered on-line, it being the kind of obscure science book the stores likely wouldn't stock. (But I admit I didn't go looking for it locally -- why bother?)
Last year I sold off about 90% of the paper books in the house. They'd sat there unopened for years past the point where they were of any interest. In the majority of cases I could find out what I needed to know about their respective subject matters on-line faster than I could find the right book and search its index -- if it had a good index at all.
The internet and its many uses are changing things fast. Of course some things will change for the worse. But many things will change for the better, and I would argue that the loss of chain book stores is one of those better changes.
Similarly, I find it hard to get worked up about Cosmos coming back. I found Sagan's delivery almost distracting enough to overwhelm the material, and Tyson's is too. Again, I'll find out what I want to know on-line -- or in digital books.
Rob
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 12:43 am
by owlice
I missed Cosmos the first time, so I look forward to seeing it.
Rob, I'm sure my actions have also contributed to Borders' demise, as the holiday gifties, which include a lot of books, are ordered online, and yes, I do a lot of reading online, too, and looking up of things. But here's a little tale pulled from my (online, not hand-written in a hardbound book of blank paper) journal... oh, this seems almost a lifetime ago now! My son's name has been changed to protect the (sometimes) innocent.
Tall child, who was then a small child of four, and I were in Borders. Bookstores are a favorite outing for us. We had picked up a number of books and were sitting in the cafe having a snack as we perused our selections. I don't know what prompted this, but at one point, I looked up and asked the tall child to spell "pharmaceutical." He did. I asked him to spell "pharmacist." He did. I asked him to spell "pharmacy." He did. And then I asked him to spell "farm." He laughed.
A moment later, a man sitting at a nearby table said, "Excuse me, but those were some big words you were giving him to spell. How old is he?" "Four," was my reply. "Four!" "Yes," said I, "my small child learned how to read at an early age, and he is good with words and spells well."
The man and I exchanged a few more comments along the line of then-small child's spelling; small child interjected with, "Yes, Mom, but you don't give me very hard words!"
"I don't?," I asked.
"No, you don't! You need to give me higher-level words."
"Like what, small child?"
"College-level!," replied he.
"Really! And what kind of words would college-level words be?"
Small child was quiet -- he'd not expected me to ask him what college-level words would be!
I was stumped, too, but then asked him. "You mean like 'deoxyribonucleic acid'??"
Whereupon small child lit up and said, "D-E-O-X-Y-R-"
"Wait, wait, wait!," I interrupted. "I'd like you to write this down instead of spelling it out loud!" So I handed him a napkin, the gentleman at the neighboring table provided the pen, and the small child wrote down "deoxyribonucleic acid."
"How do you even know that, small child?," I asked.
"Oh, I read it, in one of my 'Discover' magazines," was the small child's reply.
The gentleman and I looked at each other.
"As I said, he's good with words!"
(I still have the napkin, and remember very well my shock.)
Many a Saturday night, we sat on the floor of that Borders reading, or stood upstairs tethered to the listening stations -- when it still had them -- dancing together to different music. Many times in those early days of his childhood, I couldn't afford to buy us much during our visits so we had to chose our purchases carefully, to make sure what we got was what had the most value to us. Tough for a kid sometimes, and oh, so hard to have to say no so often to his big green hope-filled eyes!
Even now, the tall child (a college student) and I will still browse bookstores, and his major outing by himself when we were in San Francisco was hunting down bookstores and visiting them (and buying a lot of books to cart home).
I did buy the 30th anniversary large-format hard-copy Cosmos last night. Also Postcards from Mars, which I had once been given but which I gave back, Packing for Mars, because I gave away the copy of the book I had purchased for myself, Elegant Universe, which I had given to exH#1 and had hoped to borrow back from him when he was done with it (that never happens!), and a few (*cough*) other books, too. Time to rotate what's on the bathroom bookshelves, after all, and the kid, who's been away for three weeks, will be coming home soon.
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 2:05 am
by rstevenson
A lovely story -- thanks for sharing it. Reminds me of a child I once knew ... .
Rob
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 3:42 am
by owlice
Thanks, Rob, and I'm not surprised it reminded you of someone.
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 7:25 pm
by jessy27
owlice,
Great story, reminds me of my childhood too. Growing up in rural Alaska books were my TV. Every Saturday my mom would take us to the library
and I would get a big stack of books, after school and before bed I read constantly. (not much to do in winter in Alaska) Even to this day I have to read
for at least an hour before before going to sleep.
I enjoyed the new COSMOS more than I thought I would.
The part where Neil states that Bruno had no idea of the sort of torture he would soon have to endure comes immediately before a Samsung commercial ... very Hitchcockian.
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2014 2:09 pm
by Chris Peterson
I wasn't very impressed. The first show was extremely thin on content. Really cheesy graphics- more scenes where they played with that silly CGI "space ship" than where they actually showed anything. Some stuff just plain wrong, like their rendering of the asteroid belt and trans-Neptunian region. Poor usage of simulated objects instead of actual Hubble shots. And Dyson is no Sagan.
I don't know. I'll watch episode two, but if it doesn't improve a lot, that will be it for me.
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2014 4:25 pm
by neufer
Chris Peterson wrote:
I wasn't very impressed. The first show was extremely thin on content. Really cheesy graphics- more scenes where they played with that silly CGI "space ship" than where they actually showed anything. Some stuff just plain wrong, like their rendering of the asteroid belt and trans-Neptunian region. Poor usage of simulated objects instead of actual Hubble shots. And Dyson [sic] is no Sagan.
You mean deGrasse Tyson?
It's certainly the best thing that Fox & Seth MacFarlane have done thus far, IMO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos:_A_Spacetime_Odyssey#Development wrote:
<<Tyson comments on the "love-hate relationship" viewers had with the original series' Spaceship of the Imagination, but confirms that they are developing "vehicles of storytelling". The updated Spaceship of the Imagination was designed to "remain timeless and very simple", according to MacFarlane, using the ceiling to project future events and the floor for those in the past as to allow Tyson, as the host, to "take [the viewer] to the places that he’s talking about".>>
Chris Peterson wrote:
I'll watch episode two, but if it doesn't improve a lot, that will be it for me.
Fair enough. Just don't burn Neil or Seth at the stake.
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2014 9:10 pm
by Chris Peterson
neufer wrote:You mean deGrasse Tyson?
Of course. There's something about people with three names that brings out my dylsexia.
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2014 9:23 pm
by geckzilla
Teil neGrasse Dyson?
If it doesn't end up free from a legitimate source somewhere online, I probably won't ever end up watching it. Or maybe it will end up on Netflix? I do have that.
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2014 9:32 pm
by bystander
I was also somewhat disappointed. I remember watching the original series on Sunday mornings on PBS. What a difference. The commercials on Fox seemed more substantial than the program (no commercials with the original). Hopefully there will be more substantial content in future episodes.
As for Neil deGrasse Tyson, maybe he isn't as good as Sagan, but who else is there? He at least is an enthusiastic believer in the project. About the only person I know who might have been better is Dr. Brian Cox and he is probably under contract to the BBC.
edit: Well, if being a scientist wasn't necessary, maybe James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman. They are great narrators.
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2014 9:42 pm
by Chris Peterson
bystander wrote:I was also somewhat disappointed. I remember watching the original series on Sunday mornings on PBS. What a difference. The commercials on Fox seemed more substantial than the program (no commercials with the original). Hopefully there will be more substantial content in future episodes.
As for Neil deGrasse Tyson, maybe he isn't as good as Sagan, but who else is there? He at least is an enthusiastic believer in the project. About the only person I know who might have been better is Dr. Brian Cox and he is probably under contract to the BBC.
Alan Alda could pull it off extremely well, IMO. And I've seen a few episodes of Through the Wormhole, and been very impressed with Morgan Freeman as a science popularizer. Tyson is very good with extemporaneous presentations; not so good, I think, with scripted material. And this material was kind of weak, and felt dumbed down- something I never got from the original (and I rewatched a couple of the old episodes, since the whole series was rebroadcast first).
Re: BA: Cosmos will hit the air once again!
Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:34 am
by bystander
geckzilla wrote:If it doesn't end up free from a legitimate source somewhere online,
Thanks. I might put more effort into getting it to work later but for now all it wants to do is show me an advertisement and then a still frame of Neil that never stars Cosmosifying.
If it's that full of ads though, I wouldn't watch it even if it did work... ugh!
