Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

It was excellent as an introduction - but I really hope they move more into "new stuff" for episode 2 on - I was looking forward to learning lots of new stuff while being entertained - and while I was entertained, all the rest was old hat besides learning about Sagan and Neil's personal interaction at the end portion. (Which while cool - isn't science...)

I'll be very disappointed it I don't start learning some real stuff soon from the program. (Sure, I'm pretty versed on the subject being that it's a hobby that I grasp quite well [although nothing formal past high school] - but I've been wowed by Neil many times before - hopefully I've not plumbed that well fully already)

supertouch_sl said:

Tyson would be considered the next Sagan if he actually made any scientific breakthroughs.

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Sometimes it's not about that. NGT, regardless of his discoveries, is still a brilliant man. What he does for Science is to bring a sociable person who can explain things to the masses (Similar to Bill Nigh). Sometimes an Industry just needs a spokesperson. NGT is filling those shoes and he's doing a great job at it.

Well I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. It was better than I thought it would be, not being a member of the NDT cult of personality. I do wish they would have paid some additional homage to the original series and made the starship look less like something from The Phantom Menace and more like the one from the original series (which resembled the dandelion seed from one of Sagan's analogies). NDT's personal tribute at the end was quite nice though.

The original series was marathoned on NatGeo yesterday afternoon prior to the new series debut. One thing that stood out:

"In the vastness of the cosmos, there must be other civilizations far older and more advanced than ours, so shouldn't we have been visited? Shouldn't there be every now and then alien ships in the skies of Earth? There's nothing impossible in this idea, and no one would be happier than me if we had been visited. But has it happened in fact? What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we'd like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but what is supported by hard evidence, rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"- Carl Sagan

Yes Ancient Aliens assholes, that's Carl Sagan mocking you from the grave.

Tarrant_sl said:

You realize they have to start from somewhere right? And the whole point of Cosmos is to put things in perspective for people who may NOT necessarily know much about science.

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As I said, it was excellent as an introduction - I'm just hoping I don't need to wait for Season 2 to really enjoy learning stuff myself. I understand the need, I just hope I'm not bored by getting stuff rehashed the entire time.

[Perhaps NOVA ScienceNow! with him had me spoiled - so much of that was brand new to me]

I'm going into the new series expecting basically the same information contained in the original minus the Cold War overtones (climate change will probably replace it as the major potential threat on the horizon).

Serpens_sl said:

A good start. Knew most of the astronomy but not the story of Bruno. One question though. It showed the Moon's origin as an accumulation of debris, but isn't the latest theory that it was caused by a huge impact that separated a big chunk from Earth?

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The most accepted theory AFAIK is that an approximately Mars-sized planet did a bodycheck of the young Earth, which caused the Earth to eject a large quantity of material, which eventually formed the moon. But it's not like it crapped out a sphere shaped moon...the forces that formed the moon are the same that formed the planets. We actually had very little data on how debris accumulated in zero-G until a simple experiment on the space station with granulated sugar gave a planetary scientist a "EUREKA!" moment.

kudos_sl said:

Religion seemed to be the major potential threat oddly enough. I walked away saying, " I bet the religious right goes ape shit by the end of this show".

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Sagan took shots at religion in the original also, recounting the history of the Library of Alexandria and Hypatia.

I thought it was pretty entertaining. Thing is, there have been many shows in the past several years that have worked to accomplish the same thing. Wonders of the Universe being the one I really enjoyed. People that watch The Science Channel or The Discovery Channel on a semi-regular basis will probably be familiar with a lot of the topics. I feel like everything just kind of repeats every few years or so with a new show that has higher production quality, but not a lot of new information. Hopefully I'm wrong with this one.

I actually never saw the original, before my time really. I am looking forward to this. NDT was on Nerdist's podcast promoting it, it was a great listen.

I just got around to watching it. I've always liked NDT and he has a certain TV appeal to him that is easy to enjoy.

I really enjoyed the show. The ship is a little cheesy but serves its purpose and the slow intro played really well into the best part of the show.

The cosmic calendar was amazing as was the brief history lesson about Giordano Bruno and his battle with the inquisition. Crazy really how much things have changed in such a relatively small window of time. Sad that many lives were lost at the hands of ass holes over nothing more than differing thoughts. Sadder there are those still today that would defend everything that happened. Sad sad sad


Overall its a good reboot of a great series. I've got it locked in on my DVR so I never miss an episode.