‘Cosmos’ review
A beautiful tribute to Carl Sagan, and introduction to the Universe
Last night, US television broadcast the first episode of a reworking of ‘Cosmos: A Personal Voyage’ — the series hosted by Carl Sagan in 1980.
The reboot, hosted by Sagan’s protege Neil deGrasse Tyson, has been subtitled ‘A Spacetime Odyssey’ and brings the viewer through much of the same material but with a fresh perspective informed by the discoveries made since 1980 and the best visual effects that money can buy.
It’s a beautiful piece of television — both in its content and its presentation. Tyson has both the gravity and warmth to keep the viewer engaged, and shows his genuine love of the subject matter in almost every scene. If you were concerned it couldn’t live up to its predecessor, have no fear — it’s reverence for its subject matter is clear throughout.
Following a brief introductory sequence, the viewer is taken on a journey in a spaceship piloted by Tyson. From the Earth’s surface, his ship flies through the solar system, out past the Oort cloud and the Local Group and out to the edge of the observable universe. This is where most of the effects budget was spent — recreating what we believe other planets to look like, including an incredible shot from within Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.
The show then takes a trip back through history, telling the story of a monk named Giordano Bruno who was booted out of the Catholic church and eventually burnt at the stake, supposedly for claiming that the Earth was only one of many worlds in an infinite Universe.
It’s here that Cosmos makes its only major misstep — there are many heroes of science throughout history, but choosing a monk who Tyson admits made a ‘lucky guess’ and dedicating so much time to him seems odd. No copy remains of Bruno’s papal condemnation, but at the time the Copernican system was not a heresy, and it’s unlikely that his beliefs about the cosmos were what got him killed.
The show doesn’t mention Bruno’s other views on the church — which the Catholic Encyclopedia in 1908 listed as his beliefs that Christ is not God, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world and that the Devil will be saved. These were much more heretical assertions at the time, and no doubt played a much greater part in his fate.
By choosing to tell the incomplete story of a monk with many crazy ideas and one correct one, Cosmos undermines its goal of celebrating reason and the scientific process. Instead, it comes across as an unnecessary sideswipe against organised religion that’ll no doubt be cheered by a significant portion of its audience but could alienate others that might otherwise be inspired by the show to think deeper about the Universe.
The spirit of Sagan is ever-present in the first episode. It was produced by Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow, and contains many nods to his work — from the opening shot on the same cliff that opened the original series, to a reimagining of Sagan’s concept of a ‘cosmic calendar’, to classic quotes paraphrased, with mentions of ‘star stuff’ and motes of dust.
The cosmic calendar is a spectacular set-piece. Tyson asks the viewer to imagine the entirety of history crammed into a single year. Then describes the key dates of that year — the Big Bang on 1 January, the first star bursting into light on 10 January, the formation of the Milky Way on 15 March, the birth of our Sun on 31 August, and life emerging on 21 September. The best bit is an imagination of what the Moon’s formation must have looked like from Earth — with hundreds of tiny fragments of orbiting debris coalescing together.
Tyson then zooms in to the last few hours of the year, describing how the dinosaurs ruled the early Earth until 6.24am on 30 December when a chance meteor impact made them extinct. Humans evolved about 11pm on 31 December, a mere hour ago in the Universe’s year of existence. All of recorded history only occupies the last 14 seconds. There’s another sideswipe at religion here, when Tyson points out how Moses, Buddha, Christ and Mohammed were born mere seconds ago, in the grand scheme of things.
But the most emotional moment of the whole show comes right at the end, when Tyson talks about meeting Sagan for the first time. He narrates how he met Sagan at a bus stop in the snow and was shown around his lab before being given a copy of The Cosmic Connection, dedicated to “Neil — a future astronomer”. Have some tissues close to hand.
If the rest of the series can match up to the standards of the first episode, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey will be a triumph. Much is made of the lack of good science programming in the mainstream media, and — like Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe — the reimagining of Cosmos is a fantastic step in the right direction. It would benefit from a little less looking down its nose at religion, but for anyone who’s ever looked up into the night sky, it’s essential viewing.
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey premiered on 9 March at 9PM ET on Fox in the United States, and will be broadcast around the world over the coming week. You could just download it off Bittorrent right now, of course, but then the creators won’t be as easily rewarded for their work. If you do want to watch it live, here’s a list of the countries that will be screening the program and when the broadcast will happen. In Britain, it’ll be 7pm GMT on 16 March, on Sky One and National Geographic.
Looking Up is a collection on Medium that offers a home to those obsessed with the world above our heads. It’s curated by @duncangeere. If you enjoyed this article, please click the “recommend” button below, and if you want more, then click the “follow” button to make sure you don’t miss anything in the future. You can also ‘Like’ the collection on Facebook.
