Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage was the name of a 13-part
TV series written by
Carl Sagan,
Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, with Sagan as global presenter. The show was shot on multi-media, executively produced by Adrian Malone, produced by David Kennard, Geoffrey Haines-Stiles and Gregory Androfer, and directed by the producers and David Oyster, Richard Wells, Tom Weidlinger, and others. It covered a wide range of scientific subjects including the
origin of life and a perspective of our place in the
universe. The series was first broadcast by the
Public Broadcasting Service in
1980, and was the most widely watched series in the history of American
public television until
1990's
The Civil War. It won an
Emmy and a
Peabody Award and has since been broadcast in more than 60 countries and seen by over 600 million people, according to
the Science Channel. A
book to accompany the series was also published.
Cosmos was produced in
1978 and
1979 by Los Angeles
PBS affiliate
KCET on a roughly $6.3 million budget, with over $2 million additionally allocated to promotion. KCET later alleged that the station eventually went $3 million into debt as a result, though there is dispute on the details of exactly what happened. The show's format is based on previous
BBC documentaries such as
Kenneth Clark's
Civilisation,
Jacob Bronowski's
The Ascent of Man and
David Attenborough's
Life on Earth. (The BBC â€" a co-producer of
Cosmos â€" repaid the compliment by screening the series, but episodes were cut to fit 50-minute slots and shown late at night.) However, unlike those series, which were shot entirely on film,
Cosmos used videotape for interior scenes and special effects, with film being used for exteriors.
|
Sagan explains planetary orbits |
The series is notable for its groundbreaking use of
special effects, which allowed Sagan to apparently walk through environments that were actually models rather than full-sized sets. The soundtrack counted with pieces of music provided by Greek composer
Vangelis such as
Alpha,
Chariots of Fire,
Pulstar, and
Heaven and Hell Part 1 (the last movement serving as the signature theme music for the show, and is directly referenced by the title of episode 4). Throughout the 13 hours of the series it used many tracks from several 1970s albums such as
Albedo 0.39,
Spiral,
Ignacio,
Beaubourg and
China. The worldwide success of the documentary series also put Vangelis' music in the homes and to the attention of a global audience.
Sagan's historical description of
Hypatia of Alexandria and the burning of the
Library of Alexandria has been criticized by historians who interpret the sources on Hypatia's life and the end of the library differently and who believe that Sagan should have made clear that there is a scholarly controversy on this issue. Other parts of
Cosmos were controversial among the general public, though hardly among scientists, such as Sagan's straightforward treatment of
astrology as a
pseudoscience and his equally straightforward description of biological
evolution. As Sagan states in episode 2, "Evolution is a fact, not a theory."
|
Sagan in the series' final episode, "Who Speaks for Earth?" |
Turner Home Entertainment purchased
Cosmos from series producer KCET in
1989. In making the move to commercial television, the hour-long episodes were edited down to shorter lengths, and Sagan shot new epilogues for several episodes in which he discussed new discoveries (and alternate viewpoints) that had arisen since the original broadcast. Additionally, a 14th episode was added which consisted of an interview between Sagan and
Ted Turner, and this "new" version of the series was eventually released as a VHS box set.
Cosmos had long been unavailable after its initial release because of copyright issues with the included music, but was released in
2000 on
Region 0 NTSC DVD which includes subtitles in seven international languages, remastered
5.1 sound, as well as an alternate music and sound effects track. In
2005 The Science Channel rebroadcast the series for its 25th anniversary with updated
computer graphics, film footage and
digital sound.
Episode I: "The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean"
*
Light years,
galaxies,
stars,
planets, where we are located (the
Local Group)
*
Eratosthenes and the circumference of
Earth* The
Library of Alexandria* The Cosmic Calendar: from the beginning of the universe to the arrival of
humansEpisode II: "One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue"
|
In episode 2 Sagan journeys into the bloodstream by pricking his finger. |
* The story of the
Heike and
artificial selection of crabs resembling
samurai warriors
*
Evolution through
natural selection* The development of life on the Cosmic Calendar, and the
Cambrian explosion* Animated evolution, from
microbes to man
* Common
biochemistry of terrestrial organisms, journey into the
cell nucleus*
DNA and its functions in growth, replication and repair;
mutations* Creation of the molecules of life in the laboratory; the
Miller-Urey experiment* Speculation about life in
Jupiter's cloudsEpisode III: "The Harmony of the Worlds"
*
Astronomy vs.
astrology*
Constellations and ancient astronomy
*
Ptolemy and the
geocentric world view
*
Johannes Kepler and
Tycho Brahe*
Kepler's lawsEpisode IV: "Heaven and Hell"
* The
Tunguska event, the composition and origin of
comets
*
Asteroids and impact craters
* The planet
Venus in fiction and fact
* Venus as an example of the
greenhouse effectEpisode V: "Blues for a Red Planet"
|
Sagan with a globe of the planet Mars |
*
H. G. Wells and
The War of the Worlds*
Percival Lowell's false vision of
canals on Mars*
Robert Goddard and early
rocket-building
* The
Viking probes and their search for life on
MarsEpisode VI: "Travelers' Tales"
* The
Netherlands in the
17th century* The life and work of
Christiaan Huygens and his contemporaries
* The
Voyager probes (first images of
Jupiter and its
moons)
*
Saturn and its system of
moons, including
TitanEpisode VII: "The Backbone of Night"
* The realization that stars are suns
* The
Milky Way and its history in culture
* The
Ionian philosophers:
Anaximander,
Democritus,
Pythagoras,
Aristarchus,
Empedocles,
Thales* Teaching children about the cosmos
Episode VIII: "Journeys in Space and Time"
*
Constellations and how they change over time
* The
speed of light and
Albert Einstein's
theory of relativity**
Time dilation,
redshift,
blue shift*
Leonardo da Vinci's designs and designs for
spaceships that could travel near
light speed*
Time travel and its hypothetical effects on human history
* The origins of the
solar system and possible other worlds; the history of
lifeEpisode IX: "The Lives of the Stars"
* Powers of ten, the
googol and the
googolplex,
infinity*
Atoms (
electrons,
protons,
neutrons)
** The
periodic table of elements
* The creation of different
atomic nuclei in stars
* The lifecycle of stars;
white dwarfs,
neutron stars,
black holes
* The end of the
Sun and of
Earth,
supernovae,
red giants,
pulsars
*
Radioactivity and
cosmic rays
*
Gravity and its effects; gravity as the curvature of
spacetime, the
wormhole hypothesis
Episode X: "The Edge of Forever"
|
Sagan at the Very Large Array |
* The origins of the universe, the
Big Bang theory
* Types of galaxies,
galactic collisions,
quasars
* The
Doppler effect, life and work of
Milton L. Humason* The
four-dimensional and
closed universe
* An infinite universe vs. a god;
myths of creation, esp.
Hindu cosmology* Contracting and re-expanding vs. ever-expanding universe
* The
Very Large Array in
New Mexico,
dark matter, the
multiverse hypothesis
Episode XI: "The Persistence of Memory"
*
Bits, the basic units of information
* The diversity of
life in the oceans*
Whales and their songs
**The disturbance of the whale communications network by humans
**
Whale hunting* DNA and the
brain as
libraries* The structure of the human brain:
brain stem, Paul McLean's
Triune Brain Model:
reptilian brain,
limbic system,
cerebral cortex* The
frontal lobes as critical in long term planning
*
Neurons and connections between them, the two
brain hemispheres, the
corpus callosum* The evolution of
cities and the history of
libraries,
books and
writing* The development of
computers and
satellites, the potential for global
collective intelligence* Intelligence on other worlds and the
Voyager Golden RecordEpisode XII: "Encyclopedia Galactica"
*
Betty and Barney Hill abduction and
UFOs*
Jean-François Champollion's translation of
Egyptian hieroglyphics* The chance of civilizations existing elsewhere in the
Milky Way galaxy,
Drake equation* Our way of communicating with extraterrestrials (
SETI)
* A look at a hypothetical encyclopedia consisting of other worlds in the galaxy
Episode XIII: "Who Speaks for Earth?"
* The
Tlingit and the voyage and encounters of
La PĂ©rouse * The destruction brought by the Spanish
conquistadores* Sagan's vision (told as a dream) in which our world was destroyed by
nuclear warfare* The
balance of terror on the Earth today
* The
destruction of the
Library of Alexandria and murder of
Hypatia* The beginning of the universe and good endeavors of our civilization
* Sagan's plea to cherish life and continue our journey to the cosmos
The
1986 special edition of
Cosmos is special in many ways. First of all, the series is much shorter than the original broadcast, consisting of only six episodes each about 45 minutes in length:
#Other Worlds part 1 #Other Worlds part 2 #Children of the Stars part 1 #Children of the Stars part 2 #Message from the Sky part 1 #Message from the Sky part 2
Visually, the series uses several of the historic sequences and animations from the original series, but interweaved are also new
computer animated sequences and additional scenes with host Carl Sagan. As known today, the special edition version was at least broadcast in the USA, Japan, Germany, and Australia.
As for the music, this version of
Cosmos contains a mix of music used in the original series, together with a unique score by Vangelis, composed specially for this series. This score in some sources is also referred to as "Comet", with "Comet 16" acting as the title and ending theme of each episode. Unfortunately, only one of the total 21 cues of this score has officially been released, "Comet 16". Some of the new music also appears in the 2000 remastered DVD release. Apparently also one cue made it into the 1989 VHS release.
*
The music of Cosmos: a look at the music of Vangelis Papathanassiou*
A complete list of the Cosmos soundtrack music, based on the original cue sheets*
Saving Carl Sagan's Cosmos, Clive Young, DVD Works, June 2001
*
Cosmos promo on Google Video*
25th Anniversary Rebroadcast of Cosmos on The Science Channel*
Cosmos 25th Anniversary Edition PopMatters Television Review, Bill Gibron, PopMatters, 20 October 2005
