July 22, 2013

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Cosmos: The Second Coming

By Brian Malow

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

I've been waiting a long time for this.

Fresh from its debut at San Diego Comic-Con, the first official trailer for the reboot of Carl Sagan's Cosmos:

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In August of 2008, I attended the third annual SciFoo conference at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA.  That's a whole other subject, which I've touched on here and here and here.  (there seem to be some broken image links in these ancient posts)

Of the many incredible and inspirational people I met and interacted with that weekend (see those previous posts), one of the most delightful was Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's widow and collaborator.  We met in a session entitled, "Seducing the Public with Science." Immediately afterwards, we were in line together for a buffet-style lunch, and I remember her telling me that they were going to remake Cosmos - and the new host would be astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Cosmos was such a singular program I had never even considered it being remade. But a new version with Neil Tyson as host?...  YES.  That sounds right. That sounds awesome.

Years went by and I only heard occasional whispers of the project.

Then it was announced that Seth MacFarlane was on board to produce and that the 13-part series would air on Fox.  That may sound surprising but it wasn't to me. I knew that MacFarlane was a big fan of science and, as for Fox being the venue, it actually makes sense. They want to reach an audience that doesn't normally seek out science programming. Tyson has been doing the same thing with his radio show - StarTalk (to which I've contributed).  It airs on commercial - not public - radio. Bringing the science to the people.

The Cosmos trailer is a great teaser. It looks like the show might be extremely faithful to the original, with necessary updates in content and visual style. If you're wondering why Tyson seems to be touring the universe in a spaceship...  well, go check out the original series. It's 13 one-hour episodes and it's well worth your time. It's Carl Sagan.

And the new series won't air til 2014.

I've waited five years. I guess I can wait one more.

In addition to performing and giving science communication talks for NSF, AAAS, NASA, NIST, ACS and other acronyms, Brian Malow has produced science videos for Time magazine and audio pieces for Neil deGrasse Tyson's StarTalk radio show. He has blogged for Scientific American and worked in science communications at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. He can be found as @sciencecomedianScienceComedian.com.

More by Brian Malow

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