Thirty four years have passed since the original series hosted by the visionary Sagan premiered on PBS.
By PATRICK ROWAN
If there's anyone out there today who can carry the late Carl Sagan's banner forward, it would be Neil deGrasse Tyson. And that's the idea of the brand new 13-part series "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey," with Tyson as host, which premieres March 9 at 9 p.m. on both Fox TV and National Geographic Channel..
While it is not typical for me to promote a TV show here, this is special: It is the long anticipated sequel to Carl Sagan's seminal "Cosmos: A Personal Journey." Sagan's 13 segments began airing in 1980. They changed the face of science programming on TV, and inspired viewers around the world. With an estimated viewership of 500 million across 60 countries, the segments were the highest rated PBS series until Ken Burns' "The Civil War."
"The new 'Cosmos' is not on PBS?" was my wife, Clara's, and my initial reaction to the news of this coming adaptation, but that is probably a good thing. I hope the new "Cosmos" becomes as important a cultural event as the original, so the more eyes on it, the better. It certainly is getting a healthy global roll out, showing simultaneously across 10 21st Century Fox networks and National Geographic.
Fox has a huge audience share, along with a bit of a reputation as a bullhorn for the anti-science crowd. What better place to run a series whose intent it is to introduce the living thrills and dynamic excitement of scientific exploration and its rewards to the widest possible audience?
Thirty four years have passed since the original series hosted by the visionary Sagan premiered on PBS, and now a bunch of very smart people, including Sagan's widow, Ann Druyan (who collaborated with Sagan on the original), and Seth MacFarlane ("Family Guy" and "American Dad") are about to unveil the much anticipated follow-up act. MacFarlane's involvement is sure to impart this series with its own distinctive flavor.
Through the years, the original 13-part "Cosmos" series has undergone updates with new information and embellishment with fresh computer graphics, all in support of numerous reruns on various venues. It has survived because it is informative and entertaining -- qualities due in large part to the engaging presentation of Sagan, who became a household name and worldwide celebrity.
My sister Margaret enjoyed the broad strokes of the original "Cosmos" series and the accompanying book, which she read after the series end. She found the approach to the ancient Greeks and their exploration of chemistry, physics, and astronomy refreshing. "The book was a mind bender" she said, in its treatment of Einstein, relativity, thought experiments, and the astronomical information. She was especially engaged by "the creation myths of ancient civilizations" and found the book "really lived up to its title." Like the original, the new "Cosmos" covers a wide range of scientific subjects, including the origin of life and a perspective of our place in the universe.
Sagan and the success of "Cosmos" are inseparable, so the importance of the new host's role cannot be overestimated. That is what makes the new series such an ambitious undertaking. Since Sagan's passing in 1996, the question of who could pick up the mantle and carry it forward has been on many a mind. Other personalities had potential, but never quite filled the bill.
Now a worthy successor has turned up, not through the flattery of imitation, but rather the power of inspired originality. The Bronx's own Neil deGrasse's Tyson honors the Sagan legacy nicely, but on his own terms. As the director of the Hayden Planetarium at New York's American Museum of Natural History, the astrophysicist has already made a name for himself through numerous appearances on talk shows and PBS productions.
Tyson has become a commodity because he is thoughtful, fair, and funny. My bet is that Tyson will make it work. His personal warmth and humor will engage viewers in the experience of scientific discovery, and not run them through lists of scientific facts. Add to that the sense that science is going mainstream in a big way, and it seems this release could be perfectly timed to hit the proverbial nail on the head.
Tyson and Druyan emphasize that this is not a remake -- an obvious point based on the previews I have seen -- but a sequel. That's good, too, because this is an opportunity to showcase how science changes our worldview with new information. And there sure is a lot of new ground to cover. Science is a work in progress. "It's time to get going again," Tyson pronounces in a series trailer.
Dramatic visuals and cinematic soundtrack beckon us all on a grand adventure. "Life on Earth is one of the unsolved mysteries of science," Tyson says. He delivers boldly, often with the smile of a kid sharing some fantastic secret; "Come with me, our journey is just beginning!" My hopes are high. This looks like it could be fun.
Not quite sure when I first became aware of this rising star, it is clear he's earned the respect of many through his original insights, enthusiasm, perspective and humor. My hiking friends and I discussed his emergence as a media personality a few times, as we wandered under a star-filled sky in the nearby Berkshires. The consensus is that he seems to be the "real deal".
One Internet video featuring Tyson that my friends and I talked about, involves what he describes as a "fascinatingly disturbing thought." Pointing to the fact that we share roughly 99 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, and assuming that our "humanness" is due to the remaining 1 percent, he wonders how we might look to a being that is smarter than us by the same amount (as we are to a chimpanzee): "We would look like blithering idiots" as he puts it, thus questioning why aliens even slightly more intelligent would even bother trying to communicate with us. There's been much discussion about relative intelligence, but this was a fresh perspective. And that's Tyson hallmark.
When confronting the reality of our physical insignificance in this unimaginably vast universe, Tyson says "I feel big because my atoms came from those stars." He observes that in life, "You want to feel connected. You want to feel relevant." It is that acknowledgement that separates him from many of science's spokespeople, and why so many viewers will find his message palatable.
Tyson said the original "Cosmos" taught him that there was "an appetite out there for science, if it's delivered in a way that's compelling, warm, and compassionate." If the new series provokes. while maintaining its humanity, then we can expect some truly fun and edifying television starting the night of March 9. I, for one, cannot wait. I'll be watching, and I hope you will be too.
Find rise and set times for the sun and moon, and follow ever-changing celestial highlights in the Skywatch section of the Weather Almanac in the Daily Republican and Sunday Republican.
Patrick Rowan has written Skywatch for The Republican since 1987, and has been a Weather Almanac contributor since the mid 1990s. A native of Long Island, Rowan graduated from Northampton High School, studied astronomy at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in the 1970s and was a research assistant for the Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory. From 1981 to 1994, Rowan worked at the Springfield Science Museum’s Seymour Planetarium, most of that time as planetarium manager. Rowan lives in the Florence section of Northampton with his wife, Clara, and cat, Luna.