So I said 'there is some machinery churning in Seth MacFarlane's head beyond the fart jokes'." But taking Cosmos to Fox seemed like a madcap notion. "In one episode he goes to the beginning of the universe – the big bang – and in another one he goes to multiple universes. "I'd known that in his cartoons, in Family Guy, there are many references to science, not the least of which are the destinations of Stewie's time machines," he tells me. Tyson was not surprised that MacFarlane was interested. "When I was a kid I watched Cosmos and it was presented in such a way that placed it in a very different category from other science documentaries that tended to be a little on the dry side," he explained in an interview for Fox.Ī Hubble space telescope image of the star cluster R136. Yet for MacFarlane, Cosmos pressed buttons. It was a project a world away from the ribald romps of Family Guy or Ted. "Seth walked into our lives and made all kinds of lavish promises about taking us to Fox," says Druyan. "But they wanted creative control and to cede that to them would have meant that I really couldn't protect the legacy of Carl's work, and mine, and Steve's."īut then Tyson met MacFarlane.
"They knew was the gold standard of a very unusual kind of science-based entertainment," she tells me. No network was prepared to give Druyan creative carte blanche. Later Tyson joined the team as host, but there was a problem. About seven years ago, together with astrophysicist Steven Soter, who with Sagan and Druyan was also a writer on the original series, she began planning new episodes of Cosmos. And with Sagan, in his slow, compelling drawl, uttering knock-out lines like "the cosmos is also within us, we're made of star-stuff", the show thrilled and informed in equal measure.īut like all good things, it came to an end, and after Sagan died in 1996 aged 62, it seemed that Cosmos was destined to remain on a nostalgic pedestal. Delving into the nature of the universe, the fabric of our being and the lives of those who made some of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time, Cosmos was an immersive experience. But Cosmos was far more than just a fanciful tour of our solar system hosted by an exalted professor in a corduroy jacket. British physicists Brian Cox and Maggie Aderin-Pocock have cited Sagan as a huge influence, while his appeal was also felt by those pursuing a rather different path – comedian Robin Ince even put on a show named "Carl Sagan Is Still My God". Photograph: Tony Korody/CorbisĪnd it didn't just captivate American audiences. Its mindbending visual effects and soaring music, coupled with Sagan's lyrical, almost hypnotic narration mesmerised viewers, making it one of the most successful programmes ever to run on America's Public Broadcasting Service.Ĭarl Sagan brought astronomy into popular culture.
Hulu cosmos a spacetime odyssey series#
"People have phrases that one of us wrote tattooed on their body," Ann Druyan, co-writer of the series and Sagan's widow, tells me. First seen in 1980, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, and its beguiling, turtleneck-sweater wearing host, the astrophysicist and author Carl Sagan, has achieved cult status.
Yet it's doubtful that even the masterminds behind the NAS could have predicted that when MacFarlane, creator of the bawdy cartoon Family Guy, ended up shooting the breeze with one of America's best-known astrophysicists, it would lead to an astonishing re-boot of one of the most popular science television programmes ever. The upshot was the Science and Entertainment Exchange programme, launched in 2008. Science and the movies seem unlikely bedfellows, but hooking them up was a strategic move by the NAS to combat what it saw as a growing public disconnection with science, as well as to offer film-makers help and inspiration for storylines. It's as though he just revealed the royal family have been hanging out in McDonald's. "The National Academy of Sciences," he reiterates. " Seth MacFarlane at a kickoff meeting of a new office opened in Hollywood by the National Academy of Sciences." He seems barely able to believe it himself. "T This is an extraordinary sentence I am about to utter," says astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson in a voice charged with significance.