Neil deGrasse Tyson is officially returning to the Cosmos.
Seth MacFarlane, who co-produced 2014’s Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, teased over Reddit in September to “stay tuned” for a potential second season of the documentary series. “I can’t give a concrete answer to that yet ’cause I’m not allowed, but let’s just say you won’t be disappointed,” he wrote at the time. Now, we do have a concrete answer.
Cosmos: Possible Worlds will debut sometime in spring 2019 across National Geographic and Fox channels, the networks jointly announced from a Television Critics Association panel on Saturday. The series will also debut internationally through National Geographic.
Neil deGrasse Tyson has also tweeted out confirmation.
Yup. We got the band back together. Another season of Cosmos is officially real. “COSMOS: Possible Worlds” To air on @FOXTV & @NatGeoChannel in a year — Spring 2019. Be there. pic.twitter.com/OjvatE7GlK
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 14, 2018
There is also a teaser
It might still be over one year away, but there is already a teaser. Fox has published this to YouTube …
It’s just a TV show, why the fuss?
For those not familiar with it all, the original COSMOS was back in the 1980’s and was hosted by Carl Sagan. The connection to that original series is that the host for this is Neil deGrass Tyson. He was not only personally influenced by Carl Sagan, but like him is not your normal TV host. He is very much like Sagan in the sense that he is not only an actual astrophysicist and but he is also a popular science communicator.
The best moment within the “Cosmos” 2014 premiere occurred at the end where Tyson touched upon Sagan’s legacy in astronomy and science communication. Tyson showed a day calendar from 1975 – Sagan’s own daily planner – with a meeting with Tyson penned in on a Saturday. Sagan had invited the then 17-year-old Tyson to Ithaca, N.Y., where Sagan taught at Cornell University, for a visit. It was snowing when the young Tyson went to catch the bus back home to the Bronx. Sagan gave Tyson his home phone number, and invited Tyson to call him if the bus didn’t show and spend the weekend with his family.
”I already knew I wanted to become a scientist, but that afternoon I learned what kind of person I wanted to be,”
The producers for season 2 are Seth MacFarlane (yes The Orville guy), and also Ann Druyan. Ann was not only the co-author and co-creator of the original television series but she was also Carl Sagan’s wife.
If you saw the original in the 1980s, there here are a few Phrases that you may be familiar with. These include …
- “billions and billions” …. “A galaxy is composed of gas and dust and stars—billions upon billions of stars”
- “The total number of stars in the Universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth.”
- and of course the Sagan standard … “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
Weird Reactions to the Season 1 of the remake in 2014
Finally, just to get a bit of face-palming in, here are some of the reactions to that 2014 season 1.
- Answers in Genesis (the young earth creationist group) demanded that they should be on “Cosmos” for “balance”
- MotherJones article – Science Deniers Are Freaking Out About “Cosmos”
- Weirdest claim: “Atheism Is a Religion, and Neil deGrasse Tyson and Cosmos Seek Converts”
In an age where science denial is more or less the official policy of both the GOP and also the President of the United States, then I think we can anticipate more of the same with season 2.
Links
Here are a couple of further links that you might enjoy.
- You can watch Cal Sagan’s complete 1980’s series on YouTube here
- The amazing atheist collected some of the idiot reactions to the 2014 Cosmos
- President Barack Obama’s Intro to Cosmos (I somehow can’t see Trump doing something like this)
Additionally …
- Wikipedia page : Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey – This is about the remake which had season 1 in 2014, and now season 2 in 2019
- Wikipedia page : Cosmos: A Personal Voyage – Carl Sagan’s original 13 part series from the 1980s. This became one of the most watched PBS TV series in the world. It was broadcast in more than 60 countries and seen by over 500 million people.