 Tagline: 13 Part Mini-Series Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey continues the exploration of the remarkable mysteries of the cosmos and our place within it. Hosted by renowned astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, this thrilling, 13-part adventure will transport you across the universe of space and time, bringing to life never-before-told stories of the heroic quest for knowledge and a deeper understanding of nature. With an updated Cosmic Calendar, dazzling visual effects, and the wondrous Ship of the Imagination, prepare to take an unforgettable journey to new worlds and across the universe for a vision of the cosmos on the grandest - and smallest - scale. Storyline: A documentary series that explores how we discovered the laws of nature and found our coordinates in space and time. Overview: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is a 2014 American science documentary television series. The show is a follow-up to the 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which was presented by Carl Sagan on the Public Broadcasting Service and is considered a milestone for scientific documentaries. This series was developed to bring back the foundation of science to network television at the height of other scientific-based television series and films. The show is presented by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was inspired by Sagan as a young college student. Among the executive producers are Seth MacFarlane, whose clout and financial investment was instrumental in bringing the show to broadcast television, and Ann Druyan, Sagan's widow and a co-creator of the original series. The series loosely follows the same thirteen-episode format and storytelling approach that the original Cosmos used, including elements such as the "Ship of the Imagination", but features information updated since the 1980 series along with extensive computer-generated graphics and animation footage augmenting the narration. The show is produced by Brannon Braga, and Alan Silvestri provides the backing score. 1.01 Standing Up in the Milky Way - Much of the introductory episode is used to demonstrate the scale of space and time relative to Earth, such as showing Earth's diminutive place within the Virgo Supercluster. -- The show begins with a brief introduction recorded by President of the United States Barack Obama describing the "spirit of discovery" that the series aspires to give to its viewers. -- Tyson opens the episode to reflect on the importance of Sagan's original Cosmos, and the goals of this series. He introduces the viewer to the "Ship of the Imagination", the show's narrative device to explore the universe's past, present, and future. Tyson takes the viewer to show where Earth sits in the scope of the known universe, defining the Earth's "address" within the Virgo Supercluster. Tyson explains how humanity has not always seen the universe in this manner, and describes the hardships and persecution of Renaissance Italian Giordano Bruno in challenging the prevailing geocentric model held by the Catholic Church. -- The episode continues onto the scope of time, using the concept of the Cosmic Calendar as used in the original series to provide a metaphor for this scale. The narration describes how if the Big Bang occurred on January 1, all of mankind's recorded history would be compressed in the last second of the last minute on December 31. Tyson concludes the episode by recounting how Sagan inspired him as a student as well as his other contributions to the scientific community. 1.02 Standing Up in the Milky Way - The episode covers several facets of the origin of life and evolution. Tyson describes both artificial selection via selective breeding, using the example of mankind's domestication of wolves into dogs, and natural selection that created species like polar bears. Tyson uses the Ship of the Imagination to show how DNA, genes, and mutation work, and how these led to the diversity of species as represented by the Tree of life, including how complex organs such as the eye came about as a common element. -- Tyson describes extinction of species and the five great extinction events that wiped out numerous species on Earth, while some species, such as the tardigrade, were able to survive and continue life. Tyson speculates on the possibility of life on other planets, such as Saturn's moon, Titan, as well as how abiogenesis may have originated life on Earth. The episode concludes with an animation from the original Cosmos showing the evolution of life from a single cell to mankind today. 1.03 When Knowledge Conquered Fear - Isaac Newton's Philosophić Naturalis Principia Mathematica is presented in this episode as one of the first works to demonstrate mankind's ability to deduce fundamental behavior of the universe from careful observation. The episode begins with Tyson describing how pattern recognition manifested in early civilization as using astronomy and astrology to predict the passing of the seasons, including how the passage of a comet was often taken as an omen. Tyson continues to explain that the origin of comets only became known in the 20th century due to the work of Jan Oort and his hypothesis of the Oort cloud. -- Tyson then continues to relate the collaboration between Edmond Halley and Isaac Newton in the last part of the 17th century in Cambridge. The collaboration would result in the publication of Philosophić Naturalis Principia Mathematica, the first major work to describe the laws of physics in mathematical terms, despite objections and claims of plagiarism from Robert Hooke and financial difficulties of the Royal Society of London. Tyson explains how this work challenged the prevailing notion that God had planned out the heavens, but would end up influencing many factors of modern life, including space flight. -- Tyson further describes Halley's contributions based on Newton's work, including determining Earth's distance to the sun, the motion of stars and predicting the orbit of then-unnamed Halley's Comet using Newton's laws. Tyson contrasts these scientific approaches to understanding the galaxy compared to what earlier civilizations had done, and considers this advancement as mankind's first steps into exploring the universe. The episode ends with an animation of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies' merging based on the principles of Newton's laws. 1.04 A Sky Full of Ghosts - This episode explains the nature of light and gravity, and discovery of black holes by witnessing stars being drawn in towards the black hole's accretion disk. -- Tyson begins the episode by explaining the nature of the speed of light and how much of what is seen of the observable universe is from light emanated from billions of years in the past. Tyson further explains how modern astronomy has used such analyzes via deep time to identify the Big Bang event and the age of the universe. -- Tyson proceeds to describe how the work of Isaac Newton, William Herschel, Michael Faraday, and James Clerk Maxwell contributed to understanding the nature of electromagnetic waves and gravitational force, and how this work led towards Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, that the speed of light is a fundamental constant of the universe and gravity can be seen as distortion of the fabric of space-time. Tyson describes the concept of dark stars as postulated by John Michell which are not visible but detectable by tracking other stars trapped within their gravity wells, an idea Herschel used to discover binary stars. -- Tyson then describes the nature of black holes, their enormous gravitational forces that can even capture light, and their discovery via X-ray sources such as Cygnus X-1. Tyson uses the Ship of Imagination to provide a postulate of the warping of spacetime and time dilation as one enters the event horizon of the black hole, and the possibility that these may lead to other points within our universe or others, or even time travel. Tyson ends on noting that Herschel's son, John would be inspired by his father to continue to document the known stars as well as contributions towards photography that play on the same nature of deep time used by astronomers. -- Animated sequences in this episode feature caricatures of William and John Herschel; Sir Patrick Stewart provided the voice for William in these segments. 1.05 Hiding in the Light - Joseph von Fraunhofer's discovery of gaps in the spectrum of visible light from the sun, the lines uniquely corresponding to specific atomic elements, would lead to the use of astronomical spectroscopy to determine the composition of distant stellar objects. -- This episode explores the wave theory of light as studied by mankind, noting that light has played an important role in scientific progress, with such early experiments from over 2000 years ago involving the camera obscura by the Chinese philosopher Mozi. Tyson describes the work of the 11th century Arabic scientist Ibn al-Haytham, considered to be one of the first to postulate on the nature of light and optics leading to the concept of the telescope, as well as one of the first researchers to use the scientific method. -- Tyson proceeds to discuss the nature of light as discovered by mankind. Work by Isaac Newton using dispersion through prisms demonstrated that light was composed of the visible spectrum, while findings of William Herschel in the 19th century showed that light also consisted of infrared rays. Joseph von Fraunhofer would later come to discover that by magnifying the spectrum of visible light, gaps in the spectrum would be observed. These Fraunhofer lines would later be determined to be caused by the absorption of light by electrons in moving between atomic orbitals when it passed through atoms, with each atom having a characteristic signature due to the quantum nature of these orbitals. This since has led to the core of astronomical spectroscopy, allowing astronomers to make observations about the composition of stars, planets, and other stellar features through the spectral lines, as well as observing the motion and expansion of the universe, and the existence of dark matter. 1.06 Deeper, Deeper, Deeper Still - Supernova SN 1987A helped to prove the existence of neutrinos that resulted from the the nuclear reactions deep within any star. -- This episodes the nature of the cosmos on the micro and atomic scales, using the Ship of the Imagination to explore these realms. Tyson describes some of the micro-organism that live within a dew drop, demonstrating parameciums and tardigrades. He proceeds to discuss how plants use photosynthesis via their chloroplasts to convert sunlight into chemical reactions that convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and energy-rich sugars. Tyson then discusses the nature of molecules and atoms and how they relate to the evolution of species. He uses the example set forth by Charles Darwin postulating the existence of the long-tongued Morgan's sphinx moth based on the nature of the comet orchid with pollen far within the flower. He further demonstrates that scents from flowers are used to trigger olfactory centers in the brain, stimulating the mind to threats as to aid in the survival of the species. -- Tyson narrates how Greek philosophers Thales and Democritus postulated that all matter was made up of combinations of atoms in a large number of configurations, and describes how carbon forms the basic building block for life on earth due to its unique chemical nature. Tyson explains on the basic atomic structure of protons, neutrons, and electrons, and the nature of nuclear fusion that occurs in most stars. He then discusses the existence of neutrinos that are created by these nuclear processes in stars, and that detecting such sub-atomic particles which normally pass through matter require subterranean facilities like the Super-Kamiokande that were used to detect neutrinos from the supernova SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud before light from the explosion were observed due to their ability to pass through matter of the dying sun. Tyson compares how neutrinos were postulated by Wolfgang Pauli to account for the conservation of energy from nuclear reactions in the same manner as Darwin's postulate on the long-tongued moth. Tyson concludes by noting that there are neutrinos from the Big Bang still existing in the universe but due to the nature of light, there is a "wall of infinity" that cannot be observed beyond. 1.07 The Clean Room - This episode is centered around how science, in particular the work of Clair Patterson (voiced in animated sequences by Richard Gere[33]) in the middle of the 20th century, has been able to determine the age of the Earth. Tyson first describes how the Earth was formed from the coalescence of matter some millions of years after the formation of the Sun, and while scientists can examine the formations in rock stratum to date some geological events, these can only trace back millions of years. Instead, scientists have used the debris from meteor impacts, such as the Meteor Crater in Arizona, knowing that the material from such meteors coming from the asteroid belt would have been made at the same time as the Earth. -- Tyson then outlines the work Patterson did as a graduate under his adviser Harrison Brown to provide an accurate count of lead in zircon particles from Meteor Crater, and to work with similar results being collected by George Tilton on uranium counts; with the established half-life of uranium's radioactive decay to lead, this would be used to estimate the age of the Earth. Patterson found that his results were contaminated by lead from the ambient environment, compared to Tilton's results, and required the construction of the first ultra-high cleanroom to remove all traces of environmental lead. With these clean results, Patterson was able to estimate the age of the Earth to 4.5 billion years. -- Tyson goes on to explain that Patterson's work in performing lead-free experiments directed him to investigate the sources for lead. Tyson notes how lead does not naturally occur at Earth's surface but has been readily mined by humans (including the Roman Empire), and that lead is poisonous to humans. Patterson examined the levels of lead in the common environment and in deeper parts of the oceans and Antarctic ice, showing that lead had only been brought to the surface in recent times. He would discover that the higher levels of lead were from the use of tetraethyllead in leaded gasoline, despite long-established claims by Robert A. Kehoe and others that this chemical was safe. Patterson would continue to campaign against the use of lead, ultimately resulting in government-mandated restrictions on the use of lead. Tyson ends by noting that similar work by scientists continues to be used to help alert mankind to other fateful issues that can be identified by the study of nature. 1.08 Sisters of the Sun - This episode provides an overview of the composition of stars, and their fate in billions of years. Tyson describes how early man would identify stars via the use of constellations that tied in with various myths and beliefs, such as the Pleiades. Tyson describes the work of Edward Charles Pickering to capture the spectra of multiple stars simultaneously, and the work of the Harvard Computers or "Pickering's Harem", a team of women researchers under Pickering's mentorship, to catalog the spectra. This team included Annie Jump Cannon, who developed the stellar classification system, and Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who has discovered the means to measure the distance from a star to the earth by its spectra, later used to identify other galaxies in the universe. Later, this team included Cecilia Payne, who would develop a good friendship with Cannon; Payne's thesis based on her work with Cannon was able to determine the composition and temperature of the stars, collaborating with Cannon's classification system. -- Tyson then explains the lifecycle of stars, being borne out from interstellar clouds. He explains how stars like the Sun keep their size due to the conflicting forces of gravity that pulls the gases in, and the expansion from escaping gases from the fusion reactions at its core. As the Sun ages, it will grow hotter and brighter to the point where the balance between these reactions will fail, causing the Sun to first expand into a red giant, and then collapse into a white dwarf, the collapse limited by the atomic forces. Tyson explains how larger stars may form even more collapsed forms of matter, creating novas and supernovas depending on their size and leading to pulsars. Massive stars can collapse into black holes. Tyson then describes that stars can only be so large, using the example of Eta Carinae which is considered an unstable solar mass that could become a hypernova in the relatively near future. Tyson ends describing how all matter on Earth is the same stuff that stars are made of, and that light and energy from the stars is what drives life on Earth. 1.09 The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth - This episode explores the palaeogeography of Earth over millions of years, and its impact on the development of life on the planet. Tyson starts by explaining that the lignin-rich trees evolved in the Carboniferous era about 300 million ago, were not edible by species at the time and would instead fall over and become carbon-dioxide-rich coal. Some 50 million years later, near the end of the Permian period, volcanic activity would burn the carbonaceous matter, releasing the carbon dioxide and acidic components, creating a sudden greenhouse gas effect that warmed the oceans and released methane from the ocean beds, all leading towards the Permian–Triassic extinction event, killing 90% of the species on Earth. -- Tyson then explains on the nature of plate tectonics that would shape the landmasses of the world. Tyson explains how scientists like Abraham Ortelius hypothesized the idea that land masses may have been connected in the past, Alfred Wegener who hypothesized the idea of a super-continent Pangaea and continental drift despite the prevailing idea of flooded land-bridges at the time, and Bruce C. Heezen and Marie Tharp who discovered the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that supported the theory of plate tectonics. Tyson describes how the landmasses of the earth lay atop the mantle, which moves due to the motion and heat of the earth's outer and inner core. -- Tyson moves on to explain the asteroid impact that initiated the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, leaving small mammals as the dominate species on earth. Tyson proceeds to describe more recent geologic events such as the formation of the Mediterranean Sea due to the breaking of the natural dam at the Strait of Gibraltar, and how the geologic formation of the Isthmus of Panama broke the free flow of the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific, causing large-scale climate change such as turning the bulk of Africa from lush grasslands into arid plains and further influencing evolution towards tree-climbing mammals. Tyson further explains how the influence of other planets in the Solar System have small affects on the Earth's spin and tilt, creating the various ice ages, and how these changes influenced early human's nomadic behavior. Tyson concludes the episode by noting how Earth's landmasses are expected to change in the future and postulates what may be the next great extinction event. 1.10 The Electric Boy - This episode provides an overview of the nature of electromagnetism, as discovered through the work of Michael Faraday. Tyson explains how the idea of another force of nature, similar to gravitational forces, had been postulated by Isaac Newton before. Tyson continues on Faraday, coming from poor beginnings, would end up becoming interested in studying electricity after reading books and seeing lectures by Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution. Davy would hire Faraday after seeing extensive notes he had taken to act as his secretary and lab assistant. -- After Davy and chemist William Hyde Wollaston unsuccessfully tried to build on Hans Christian Řrsted's discovery of the electromagnetic phenomena to harness the ability to create motion from electricity, Faraday was able to create his own device to create the first electric motor by applying electricity aligned along a magnet. Davy, bitter over Faraday's breakthrough, put Faraday on the task of improving the quality of high-quality optical glass, preventing Faraday from continuing his research. Faraday, undeterred, continued to work in the Royal Institution, and created the Christmas Lectures designed to teach science to children. Following Davy's death, Faraday returned to full time efforts studying electromagnetism, creating the first electrical generator by inserting a magnet in a coil of wires. -- Tyson continues to note that despite losing some of his mental capacity, Faraday concluded that electricity and magnetism were connected by unseen fields, and postulated that light may also be tied to these forces. Using a sample of the optical glass that Davy had him make, Faraday discovered that an applied magnetic field could affect the polarization of light passing through the glass sample (a dielectric material), leading to what is called the Faraday effect and connecting these three forces. Faraday postulated that these fields existed across the planet, which would later by called Earth's magnetic field generated by the rotating molten iron inner core, as well as the phenomena that caused the planets to rotate around the sun. Faraday's work was initially rejected by the scientific community due to his lack of mathematical support, but James Clerk Maxwell would later come to rework Faraday's theories into the Maxwell's equations that validated Faraday's theories. Their combined efforts created the basis of science that drives the principles of modern communications today. 1.11 The Immortals - This episode covers the nature of how life may have developed on Earth and the possibility of life on other planets. Tyson begins by explaining how the human development of writing systems enabled the transfer of information through generations, describing how Princess Enheduanna ca. 2280 BCE would be one of the first to sign her name to her works, and how Gilgamesh collected stories, including that of Utnapishtim documenting a great flood comparable to the story of Noah's Ark. Tyson explains how DNA similarly records information to propagate life, and postulates theories of how DNA originated on Earth, including evolution from a shallow tide pool, or from the ejecta of meteor collisions from other planets. In the latter case, Tyson explains how comparing the composition of the Nakhla meteorite in 1911 to results collected by the Viking program demonstrated that material from Mars could transit to Earth, and the ability of some microbes to survive the harsh conditions of space. With the motions of solar systems through the galaxy over billions of years, life could conceivably propagate from planet to planet in the same manner. -- Tyson then moves on to consider if life on other planets could exist. He explains how Project Diana performed in the 1960s showed that radio waves are able to travel in space, and that all of humanity's broadcasted signals continue to radiate into space from our planet. Tyson notes that projects have since looked for similar signals potentially emanating from other solar systems. Tyson then explains that the development and lifespan of extraterrestrial civilizations must be considered for such detection to be realized. He notes that civilizations can be wiped out by cosmic events like supernovae, natural disasters such as the Toba disaster, or even self-destruct through war or other means, making probability estimates difficult. Tyson describes how elliptical galaxies, in which some of the oldest red dwarf stars exist, would offer the best chance of finding established civilizations. Tyson concludes that human intelligence properly applied should allow our species to avoid such disasters and enable us to migrate beyond the Earth before the Sun's eventual transformation into a red giant. 1.12 The World Set Free - This episode explores the nature of the greenhouse effect (discovered by Joseph Fourier and Svante Arrhenius), and the evidence demonstrating the existence of global warming from humanity's influence. Tyson begins by describing the long-term history of the planet Venus; based on readings from the Venera series of probes to the planet, the planet had once had an ocean and an atmosphere, but due to the release of carbon dioxide from volcanic eruptions, the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus caused the surface temperatures to increase and boiled away the oceans. -- Tyson then notes the delicate nature of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can influence Earth's climate due to the greenhouse effect, and that levels of carbon dioxide have been increasing since the start of the 20th century. Evidence has shown this to be from mankind's consumption of oil, coal, and gas instead of from volcanic eruptions due to the isotopic signature of the carbon dioxide. The increase in carbon dioxide has led to an increase in temperatures, in turn leading to positive feedback loops of the melting polar ice caps and dethawing of the permafrost to increase carbon dioxide levels. Tyson then notes that humans have discovered means of harvesting solar power, such as Augustin Mouchot's solar-driven motor in the 19th century, and Frank Shuman's solar-based steam generator in the 1910's. Tyson points out that in both cases, the economics and ease of using cheap coal and oil caused these inventions to be overlooked at the time. Today, solar and wind-power systems would be able to collect enough solar energy from the sun easily. Tyson then compares the motivation for switching to these cleaner forms of energy to the efforts of the Space race and emphasizes that it is not too late for humanity to correct its course. 1.13 Unafraid of the Dark - Tyson begins the episode by noting how the destruction of the Library of Alexandria lost much of humanity's knowledge to that point. He then contrasts on the strive for humanity to continue to discover new facts about the universe and the need to not close off further discovery. -- Tyson then proceeds to describe, through a roundabout way, the discovery of cosmic rays by Victor Hess through high-altitude balloon trips, that radiation increased the farther one was from the surface. Fritz Zwicky, in studying supernovae, postulated that these cosmic rays originated from these events instead of electromagnetic radiation. Zwicky would continue to study supernovae, and by looking at standard candles that they emitted, estimated the movement of the galaxies in the universe. His calculations suggested that there must be more mass in the universe than those apparent in the observable galaxies, and called this dark matter. Initially forgotten, Zwicky's theory was confirmed by the work of Vera Rubin, who observed that the rotation of stars at the edges of observable galaxies did not follow expected rotational behavior without considering dark matter. This further led to the discovery of dark energy by Edwin Hubble to account for the known rate of expansion of the universe beyond the visible and dark matter mass. -- Tyson then describes the interstellar travel, using the two Voyager probes. Besides the abilities to identify several features on the planets of the solar system, Voyager I was able to recently demonstrate the existence of the Sun's variable heliosphere which help buffer the Solar System from interstellar winds. Tyson describes Carl Sagan's role in the Voyager program, including creating the Voyager Golden Record to encapsulate humanity and Earth's position in the universe, and convincing the program directors to have Voyager I to take a picture of Earth from beyond the orbit of Neptune, creating the image of the Pale Blue Dot. Tyson concludes the series by emphasizing Sagan's message on the human condition in the vastness of the cosmos, and to encourage viewers to continue to explore and discover what else the universe has to offer. Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, June 11, 2014 -- Neil deGrasse Tyson's Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, an often stunning update of Carl Sagan's iconic Cosmic: A Personal Voyage, makes it abundantly clear that the universe is awash in miracles and the unexpected, but perhaps not even a rocket scientist (a type often credited with inherent genius) could have predicted that the name of Seth MacFarlane would be among the Executive Producers. Even more astounding is the fact that MacFarlane evidently was instrumental in getting a bunch of important Sagan papers and notebooks to the Library of Congress, as is detailed in one of the supplements appending this appealing new Blu-ray set. As MacFarlane jokes with Sagan's widow Ann Druyan at the Library of Congress celebration, maybe this helps to make up for all the "fart jokes" he's told on television. The participation of MacFarlane of course ultimately makes little difference to the quality of deGrasse's efforts, for it's the amiable astrophysicist, the sort of guy who can demolish Jon Stewart in one fell swoop by telling him that The Daily Show's opening graphic features the Earth spinning in the wrong direction, who set the tone and tenor of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. And it's here that Sagan's long shadow finds a contemporary companion. Tyson may not have Sagan's innately poetic spirit, but he obviously has Sagan's passion for science. When the original Cosmos aired, the world was in the throes of a huge technological revolution that had seen everything from manned flights to our nearest neighbor to the burgeoning of what would soon become known as the personal computer. Despite the march of progress which has continued unabated since the Sagan show aired, and which arguably has only increased in pace and amazing developments, science is weirdly dismissed now by an increasing segment of the population, whether those be climate change questioners, those who posit links between vaccines and various dysfunctions, or even those who claim the Bible is the be-all end-all for "history" as we know it, including the age of our planet. That perhaps makes the stakes considerably higher for this "new, improved" Cosmos. The fact is Tyson may not sway any minds (or hearts) that come to this enterprise with preexisting belief systems, but for those who are still able to conjure up a sense of wonder, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey offers abundant thrills and amazements. One decided example of technology improving and becoming more integrated with everyday life is evidenced by simply comparing the looks of the two Cosmos series, divorced from any differences in actual content. Sagan's Cosmos was a breathtakingly groundbreaking series in its day, but the "special effects" of the series, as inventive as they were for that particular era, look positively quaint to today's CGI hypnotized eyes. Tyson's version in fact references the eye itself in several opening graphics, where a spiral galaxy looks deceptively like an opening iris of an eyeball. This new Cosmos takes full advantage of the advances in CGI, thrusting Tyson into a variety of different environments as he pilots his "Ship of the Imagination" to both macro and micro locations. Perhaps oddly, there's also a decidedly more "old school" approach on hand in every episode here as well, with sometimes long animated sequences that tend to illustrate historical peoples or events. The visual presentation here is so strong and engaging that many people may initially be unaware of just how much information is also being imparted, almost subliminally at times. Tyson both refers to and plays with the content of the original Sagan Cosmos throughout this reboot. Some of it is unmistakable, as when a brief clip of the now famous scene of Sagan blowing dandelion scenes segues into a headlong rush out into the starry expanses over our heads as Tyson "takes over" from his predecessor. But there are subtler references as well. Much as with the first episode of the original Cosmos, Tyson explores our "cosmic address" in his opening episode, though he goes off on some tangents that Sagan never addressed. Even here, though, Tyson clearly keeps Sagan's original formulations in the back of his mind. For instance, while Sagan mentions the library of Alexandria early on in his version, Tyson waits until toward the end of his version and only then brings up the lost treasury of human knowledge in a somewhat different context. The interesting thing here is those with absolutely no memory of (or experience with) Sagan's version will miss nothing at all, while those who do fondly recall the original Cosmos well get little soupçons of additional interwoven data as Tyson moves through his version. There is a certain pretentiousness to the presentation here as Tyson "pilots" his spacecraft to explore everything from human DNA to infrared light to galaxies far removed from our own. But Tyson is such an appealing presence, in some ways a bit more accessible than the more formidably brainy Sagan, that even the series' excesses are easily forgivable. MacFarlane states in one of the supplements on this Blu-ray set that the creative crew wanted as cinematic an experience as possible, and there's certainly a more than epic sweep to this Cosmos. Tyson's firm hand on the rudder, though, goes a long way toward making everything comprehensible and perhaps even more important, engaging. Science deniers may still have their "issues" with various supposedly disputed facts, but even those curmudgeons would have a hard time not being impressed by the sheer scope and immediacy of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It's maybe a little scary for those of us who watched Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage when it first aired to realize that well over thirty years have passed since it premiered, but that only makes it all the clearer that the time was right for this new reboot. Wonderfully hosted by the always enjoyable Neil deGrasse Tyson, and overseen by a coalition that includes Sagan's widow Ann Druyan, this new Cosmos has all of the intimate charm of the first outing along with some pretty whiz bang computer imagery to up the visual ante considerably. Information comes quickly here, but is always presented in a clear and concise manner that repeatedly draws interesting parallels between what's happening "locally" and cosmically. Science lovers will certainly flock to this set with no other urging necessary, but even those who typically don't think of themselves as being interested in scientific information may well find Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey one of the most uniquely satisfying and compelling shows in recent memory. Highly recommended. Trivia:
Cast Notes: Neil deGrasse Tyson (Himself - Host [13 episodes]), Stoney Emshwiller (George Tilton [2 episodes]), Piotr Michael (Edmund Muskie [2 episodes]), Michael Chochol (Jan Oort [1 episode]), Kirsten Dunst (Cecilia Payne [1 episode]), Cary Elwes (Edmond Halley [1 episode]), Richard Gere (Clair Patterson [1 episode]), Anna Jane Jackson (Electric Spark Girl [1 episode]), Martin Jarvis (Sir Humphry Davy [1 episode]), Tom Konkle (Samuel Pepys [1 episode]), Phil LaMarr (Phil LaMarr[1 episode]), Bethany Levy (Businesswoman [1 episode]), Hannah Long (Future Girl [1 episode]), Seth MacFarlane (Giordano Bruno [1 episode]), Marlee Matlin (Annie Jump Cannon [1 episode]), Mehdi Merali (Cab Driver [1 episode]), Heiko Obermöller (Einstein's Father [1 episode]), Julian Ovenden (Michael Faraday [1 episode]), Nadia Rochelle Pfarr (Malala Yousefzai [1 episode]), Enn Reitel (Albert Einstein [1 episode]), Wesley Salter (James Clerk Maxwell [1 episode]), Alexander Siddig (Isaac Newton [1 episode]), Patrick Stewart (William Herschel [1 episode]), Paul Telfer (Angry Scholar #2 [1 episode]), Julie Wittner (Sarah Faraday [1 episode]). IMDb Rating (05/19/14): 9.5/10 from 14,959 users
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