Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

This is a revival/follow-up to the 1980s Cosmos series created and hosted by Carl Sagan. This series was hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and curator of the Hayden Planetarium in NY, written by Sagan's widow Ann Druyan, who had collaborated with Sagan on the original series, and produced by the creator of Family Guy, Seth McFarlane.There are many similarities and many differences between that series and this one. Like the original series, this one covers many different topics in science, focusing on Astronomy, but covering chemistry, physics, biology, and more. Each episode deals with a different topic, and usually tells the story of one or more scientists that contributed to the field being discussed. The series did not focus on just the "big" names like Newton and Einstein but discussed other scientists and mathematicians like Halley, Hooke, Keppler, etc. In the original series, the stories of the historical figures were told using human actors, but in this series, many of the stories were told using animation and voice actors. I was not a fan of the animations when I first watched the show, but upon a subsequent viewing, they did not really bother me. And, of course, the CGI graphics are orders of magnitude better than what could be accomplished in the original series.For those who get the Blu-Ray, the A/V quality is fantastic. The visuals are fantastic (both the real and the CGI) and the sound is very good. The extras include an audio commentary on the first episode, with Druyan, producer Mitchell Cannold, producer/director Brannon Braga, producer Jason Clark and animation producer Kara Vallow, a 40-minute comic-con panel discussion, a 41-minute making-of documentary, a 35-minute portion of a dedication to Sagan at the Library of Congress, and interactive cosmic calendar.Like Sagan before him, Tyson is able to explain complicated topics in very simple terms without sounding like he is talking down to the audience. Of course, the audience for this series was much larger than that of the original series airing on Fox versus PBS. Even though the series aired at a time when science has been caught in the middle of the idiotic political divide the country has been marred in, for the most the show ignored all that and just presented the scientific fact and ignored science deniers. The one exception is the episode on climate change, which distilled the problem and the cause to to very simplistic terms without hyperbole, and included a clip of an interview from back in the 1960s in which an old guy who is certainly not a part of a "woke" mob and proving that scientists knew that the amount of greenhouse gasses being pumped into the atmosphere back then was a problem. And there were clips from the original Cosmos series in which Sagan described the concerns and what the possible consequences could be (and then showed how many of those consequences have started coming to pass).One thing I wish the show would have done a bit better is explain the scale of the cosmic calendar (e.g., that 1 month corresponded to approximately 1.2 billion years, 1 day corresponded to approximately 40 million years, and 1 second corresponded to approximately 440 years) so that when Tyson said that something took place at midnight on December 31st, people did not actually think he meant something happened midnight on some random December 31st, but instead meant about 3600 - 4000 years ago. Probably the best moment of the series is when they did a CGI zoom out starting on Earth through the solar system to the galaxy level to the famous "pale blue dot" narrative by Carl Sagan. Overall, the series is wonderful and definitely in my must-watch category.

For those of us that watched the original Cosmos, this has been a long time coming. It is one of the most important programs of the first part of this century. I realize that is a pretty bold statement, but it is easily justified. Cosmos is science for the non-scientific. It is the single best tool I have seen for explaining the wonders and marvels of our universe to the lay person. If you are a scientifically adept person with an average college education, this may, at first, appear to be too simple for you. However, the way in which the ideas and facts are presented will reinforce what you already know. It is a program for all. If you are scientifically ignorant (not a crime, and certainly fixable), you really need to watch this.Bold and brilliant.The show tackles not just the universe and astronomy, but biology, botany, geography, anthropology, and of course a lot of history. How did our planet form? Why does our solar system orbit the center of our galaxy? How did people actual create the current species of dogs that exist today? These and hundreds of other questions are explained in beautiful, amazing graphics that would have been impossible even ten years ago. Do you want to know why the sky is blue or how light, in general works, know is your chance to not only understand, but to understand to the point where you can actually educate others.Relevant and necessary.Like the original series, Cosmos explains our universe. However, it has been updated to to showcase the latest scientific discoveries and cleverly juxtaposes current knowledge with the history of a particular subject. Nothing is old or out-dated. It is new and fresh. Cosmos is also a much needed reprieve from all of the crazy fictional pseudo-science that has been propagating all forms of media over the past few decades. From alien autopsies to young flat earth "scholars," we have been bombarded with imbeciles on a global level. Cosmos takes real science and brings it into peoples' homes.And then there is Neil Degrasse Tyson.One of the things that made the late Carl Sagan a hero to much of the world was his ability to take the complex and explain it. Sagan was also brilliant at debunking crazy ideas that were nothing more that fabricated nonsense. Neil Degrasse Tyson carries on that role and does a more than admirable job of it. Speaking with authority from years of experience and education, he exemplifies how today's scientific community needs to act. There has been a major disconnect between the scientific community and the rest of the world. Cosmos reconnects us all. Reality has a new spokesperson.This is a must for every DVD collection. In fact, I would say it is a must for every household in America, Period!