Cosmos: A Personal Voyage

Viewed in
2012

Formats
Netflix streaming

Premise
Carl Sagan's 13 episode epic series about stars and stuff.

Loved
Clear demonstrations.

Liked
Sagan's weird speech pattern, wealth of knowledge.

Disliked
Meandering story-telling.

Hated
Laughable spaceship of the imagination.

Thoughts
A little dated, but still worth watching once.

While it had the slow pace of an 1980's science series, it was chock full of information about the universe, large and small.  As a part-time science buff, some of it I already knew.  Some of the info was very outdated due to technology or new discoveries.  But there was still a decent percentage of interesting science that was news to me.

Sagan, as narrator/presenter/teacher, was sufficiently uneven.  His quirky delivery of speech gave the series a sense of personality.  He did a brilliant job of illustrating and demonstrating various, complex abstract ideas, theories and laws.  On the other hand, his eye-roll-inducing "spaceship of the imagination" was hilariously bad in today's sensibilities.

Personally, I hated the meanderings.  His insistence on telling each scientific figure's entire life-story was truly boring.  I was more interested in the science-y stuff, and could care less about Kepler's kid. Apparently, the special effects were quite ground-breaking back then, but not anymore.

Based on its outdated information, sloth-like pace, and pointless detours, Cosmos could really use a revamp.  Still, for astronomy fans, I would consider it in the pantheon of must-see.

The Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson update/sequel is most welcome in my opinion.  No one can replicate Sagan's quirky style, but Tyson's charm ain't no slouch.