I wrote this to a friend of mine tonight. I figure it works as a decent review of the show, if anyone cares to read it:
So, I've watched the new Cosmos series tonight and I've got some thoughts.
First, it's better than I expected. I was worried there may have been too many compromises due to it airing on Fox and that it might be too fast paced or 'in your face' due to the involvement of Seth MacFarlane. I think that this turned out to be partially true, but not as bad as I thought.
Now, let's get the bad out of the way. While I find DeGrasse Tyson likable, I fear that his presentation lacked a little something. I think it's a death by comparison, when held up against Sagan. Sagan had a very personal, very poetic cadence and tone to his words that very often moved me to tears when contemplating the enormity of the universe. Tyson seems more like a cool high school teacher that is looking to blow your mind when he reveals the scale of things. Sagans moving line about us all being made from star stuff is delivered by Tyson with an explosion sound effect like he just revealed that Kevin Spacey was Cesare Soze all along. It's not a problem of content, but delivery that I think to new viewers would work fine, but to old sentimentalists like me lose some of the power of the otherwise utterly gorgeous concept.
That brings me to the compromises, of which there are surprisingly few. This was the first episode, we shall see how the rest pans out, but being able to hear the line "Your god is too small" regardless of context on a Newscorp owned channel was not something I expected. That said, there is wishy-washyness when referring to evolution and lip service paid to every major religion, as well as a little more mystical imagery than I'd prefer.
There is also an over-reliance on animation, I felt, but that is more a symptom of the times. They will cheaply produce animation and it'll look less cheesy than period dressed actors re-enacting scenes under a narration. I will miss the actor playing Tycho Brahe with his obviously plastic 'gold nose'.
Finally, the pacing the of whole thing seems a little fast. It's a network show, it's got commercials, I get it but kids are not as stupid as we treat them and you don't honestly need images of starships zipping around asteroids to keep their attention or to rush through every section to keep it from getting dry. Even Tyson's personal story about meeting Sagan as a boy felt like someone was off camera telling him to wrap it up. Again, not a terrible thing, but I feel part of what made the first Cosmos special was it's slow, contemplative pacing and the personal intimacy that creates.
All in all, I did like what I saw. It's not perfect, but it's firmly in the good category. I have doubts it'll be remembered on the same level as the original, I mean, Sagan was a beast of a man, involved in a billions and billions of aspects of public scientific life and while Tyson is technically more visible with technology these days, there is also that much more noise to distract you from him. We shall see.
Oh, and True Detective wrapped up nicely too, so long as you cared more about characters than having a twist.
Log in to comment