Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: -
	Actors: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Stoney Emshwiller, Piotr Michael
	Country: USA
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: December 2016, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: A 13-episode journey through our Universe hosted by a professional astronomer on board a Ship of the Imagination.
Review: I have never seen the original 1980 Cosmos TV-series hosted by famous astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan, of which this Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is a modern version. The host of this revisited version is Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New-York, and he does not hide his reverence for Sagan, while being the appropriate voice and face for a series true to the original but improved with recent discoveries and top-notch special effects. This Documentary is different from the others as it does not simply tell us of scientific discoveries and facts, it tells us a story. The host is on board of a ship of the imagination that allows us travelling with him through space and time to visit distant worlds or the past of our own. A good part of the series teaches us about the life of the authors of the most influential discoveries in maths, physics, chemistry and astronomy, told via rich animated sequences and using guest voices from famous people like Richard Gere, Kirsten Dunst, Alfred Molina, Amanda Seyfried, Patrick Steward... Also from the first episode I suspected the producers to have use the same musical key notes as in the movie Contact with Jodie Foster to remind the audience of that experience, while in fact it is the same Hollywood composer Alan Silvestri who is responsible for the excellent soundtrack of the whole series! This unexpected guest-list is probably a courtesy of the unexpected producer of the show: Seth MacFarlane more known as director of Ted, A Million Ways to Die in the West and creator of the Family Guy TV-series among others. It was funny to learn of his interest in science. DeGrasse Tyson says: "We brought the idea for the show to Seth and he brought it to Fox", meaning that he had a strong role in making the series happen. I found Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey very well done, managing efficiently simplification and vulgarization of complex concepts. I found it confused at time but not confusing, I mean that it was always very clear in its explanations but sometimes episodes start trails in too many directions and conclude on only part of them. It could have been made slightly more linear. My perception may have been altered by the unfortunate slicing of the episodes to fit between commercial breaks on American TV, which are far too obvious and detrimental to the fluidity of the story. Beyond that I have nothing to reproach to the series, there are very few small mistakes that I could spots, or elements for which I think a better explanation could have been found. It covers a lot from the Big Bang, the Solar system, Antiquity, Human history and the role that the night sky has had in it since the beginning of mankind. It is interesting to notice that the new series mentions a lot pollution and Global warming, especially in Episodes 7 The Clean Room and 12 The World Set Free while I saw the the summary of the original that it was tackling UFO skepticism and the nuclear world. By contrast Episode 4 A Sky full of Ghosts can make you question reality: is our Universe the inside of a Black Hole? I would strongly recommend this TV-series, or at the very least the first Episode Standing up in the Milky Way acting as an introduction, to any of my friends wondering why I am doing the job I am doing, why do we need to go to Space and why watching the distant stars at all. The series is so good that it renewed a bit my passion for Science and Astronomy, reminding me of the excitement felt when I first read Hubert Reeves' Poussières d'étoiles or Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.  Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is about you and the world you live in: WATCH IT.
Rating: 9 /10