"Cosmos," the new, updated version of Carl Sagan's popular 1980 documentary series exploring the hows, whats and whys of the universe, premiered Sunday night on Fox, the National Geographic Channel and various corporate cousins.
Its "ship of the imagination" -- a vehicle to take viewers through wonders large and small -- now has a new captain, astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, but the reaction to the show's debut shows that entertaining, informative science never goes out of style.
"I'll be eagerly tuning in for future episodes," wrote the Los Angeles Times' Jennifer Ouellette, praising Tyson as "affable" and "engaging" and noting the debut episode's lively use of ideas -- such as the "powers of 10" -- that could turn to cliché in other hands.
I am embarrassed to say that I actually missed the premiere last night (I was instead exercising my guilty pleasure of watching the zombie apocalypse on the Walking Dead.), however I did catch it today on YouTube which unfortunately for this post has been taken down now.
The show did not shy away from pointing out the negative impact that superstition and religion have had on space exploration and recognizing our rightful place in the universe.
For me that was extremely gratifying, but for others not so much:
As I said I cannot show you the whole episode, since Fox had it taken down from You Tube.
However all is not lost as the wonderful introduction done by President Obama IS still available.
Somehow I think that having the President associated with this program did not exactly help with its acceptance among those folks who "cling to their Bibles, and their guns" do you?
Sounds really superlative Gryphen, thank you for the heads up on this show.
ReplyDeleteThis broadcast is widely available on the internet as I write on bit torrent sites.
It looks like lots of people tuned in!
ReplyDeleteThe premiere of Cosmos earned a 2.1 adults 18-49 rating on FOX. NOTE: These are just the numbers on the Fox broadcast network and do not include the full 10-network simulcast. We will update with the full simulcast numbers shortly. UPDATE: Cosmos notched 8.5 million viewers last night across the 10 simulcasting networks. Among Adults 18-49, the simulcast earned a 2.9 rating.
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/
Seth MacFarlane tweeted there were 12 million viewers in the US, 17.5 million with DVR-
Deletehttps://twitter.com/SethMacFarlane/status/443185617485037568
Yay science!!
The Bible is easy and Science is hard. They can't handle the truth. Stories are easier.
ReplyDeleteI am so stealing your phrase! It would be a great bumper sticker.
DeleteIt was also showing on Nat Geo channel and will be showing again Friday evening.
ReplyDeleteM from MD
Those wretches you 'quoted' from their Twitter feeds only further illustrate why we need programs like Cosmos. Certainly, they're doing Christians no favor by being so stupid and so hostile. When I was going to Sunday Bible school as a kid, they had not developed yet this awful irreconcilable attitude toward science that they beat us up with these days.
ReplyDeleteAwful people.
M from MD
M from MD
Do they know the Vatican has an advanced astronomical observatory in AZ? Of course my Pentacostal relatives tell me Catholics aren't really Christians.
DeleteI just finished reading "The Sparrow," which is all about Catholic space travel.
DeleteOFF TOPIC but ...
ReplyDeleteP M CARPENTER:
The protracted embarrassment that is Sarah Palin
Charles Pierce notes that Sarah Palin's CPAC speech yesterday "was as singularly embarrassing a public address as any allegedly sentient primate ever has delivered. It was a disgrace to politics, to rhetoric, to the English language, and to seventh-grade slam books everywhere."
That it was, although I confess to having watched only, maybe two minutes of the female simian's piffle. When I found myself damn near gagging at even the sight of this venomous harpy--a deep, knawing nausea immediately exacerbated by her "philosophical" insipidity--I reached for the remote.
I'm afraid--or perhaps delighted is the word--that I've been Palined out. Her venom no longer amuses, her evil no longer entertains, and her bottomless whoring to thumpers and droolers and crypto-fascists no longer engages, even as spectacle. It is--all of it--simply sickening.
The less said about this monstrous guttersnipe, the better.
- See more at: http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/#sthash.PKb1TSXb.dpuf
I must say of all the extraordinary things I've heard out of the mouths of, to put it kindly, the uneducated - "Not enough to explain the science behind the theories" is the most mind boggling and hysterical.
ReplyDeleteI chuckled at that one too!
DeleteWell I ain't gonna let no scientific facts change what I believe in, cuz that's what causes fascist communism, pure & simple. And prolly gayness, too.
DeleteAnd if you believe scientists, you probably believe all babies is born nekked as jaybirds. Sinners, all y'all. I'll try to pray away yer gay and scientificariness, if y'all ain't already beyond help, like Gryphen and his defunct blog.
A typical ignorant TP Patriot
Run Sarah Run
PALIN/CRUZ 2016
Now wouldn't a Palin/Cruz ticket turn that election cycle into a laugh fest of epic proportions. We'd have to record the whole campaign to enjoy forever their particularly quirky "innocence" and idiocy.
DeleteI loved the show, loved that President Obama did the introduction!
ReplyDeleteShip of the Imagination - best teevee spaceship ever!
ReplyDeleteThis program is phenomenal.
OT but Joe McGinnis has died of cancer at age 71. Palin better not say a word RIP Joe
ReplyDeleteAren't you crass? Grow up.
DeleteEven thought I disagreed with his he approached many things and how gullible he let himself be, he seemed like a decent man. He appropriately cut down the liberal haters at his website when they went psychotic, he kept things decent in a crass, crass liberal internet world.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/fatal-vision-author-joe-mcginniss-dies-age-71
DeleteI wonder if Joe left a little gift for Sarah Palin after his passing for all the crap she and her family pulled? Tell us what you know, Joe!
DeleteShut up, 5:37. You were here at the time shaming McGinnis for doing legitimate research for his book on Sarah Palin.
DeletePalin won't be able to control her glee, she hasn't a trace of humanity in her entire scrawny body. She makes big bucks with her lies and attacks and then has to pay little trolls to come here to defend her indefensible behavior when she is criticized and called out for her lies.
DeleteI wish it had been Sarah, she deserves to suffer in pain for eternity for all the damage she has done to this country and to the political discourse. She can rot in hell as far as I'm concerned. I wish her nothing but pain and suffering for her vile and hateful self.
DeleteI will be forever grateful to Joe for busting Sarah for her lies and stopping her from running for president in 2012...he has DIRECT influence on that by telling the truth about her dishonestly, criminality and general pathology. He did this country a huge service that I bless him for. May he rest in Peace, he saved us (along with Gryphen and other Alaskan bloggers) from a horrific nightmare that would have plunged this country into an historic dark and dismal time that, thankfully, we were spared. His contributions will cement his place in human history as the kind and brilliant man that he was.
Delete@6:42
DeleteBut Sarah's rotting away every day ALREADY, ya know, bless her heart and whatnot.
You can watch it this way: Follow the link, click on 'proceed to video' button (if you see a video, DO NOT click on it, be SURE to push the 'proceed to video' button and voila, there it is. There may be some 'pop up' windows, if you aren't using Ad block, just close them and go back to Vodlocker where the video is located.
ReplyDeletehttp://vodlocker.com/0v096h8isf3i
If that doesn't work, try any of these. Seems to work best when viewed through Firefox. I use this all the time to watch any TV show I want, since I don't have a TV:
http://watchseriesus.com/cosmos-a-space-time-odyssey-s01e01/
http://watchseriesus.com/
Here's another possibility:
http://www.watchseries-online.eu/2014/03/cosmos-a-space-time-odyssey-s01e01.html
Nice try, but no thanks. I refuse to sign up for any video streaming service on the advice of a stranger.
DeleteBalz, it's not a video streaming service and I didn't sign up for anything, I just watched the video. OBVIOUSLY, you didn't follow my directions. DON'T click on the video, click on the 'proceed to video'. And yes, I am a stranger, but I'm not a bad stranger, I was trying to help, and you didn't follow the directions, so you are misrepresenting the link. Vodlocker has tons of things to watch, I just directed you to the exact video. And as far as 'nice try', what the fuck does that mean? Like I was doing something with malice? FUCK YOU. I don't like your tone. AGAIN, there is NOTHING to sign up for if you do it right.
DeleteWOW, that is a FIND! I don't have a TV either, and I feel like I just found a candy store! I followed exactly what you suggested and there it was. THANK YOU so much, I'm thrilled! And you're right, it runs best in Firefox. Obviously that guy didn't do it right, since I didn't have to sign up for anything either. Bravo, I'll be up all night checking out all these awesome shows.
DeleteIsn't the internet amazing! I had no idea these sites existed. Thank you so much for posting those links. I see so many shows that I've been curious about, but without a tv, it's hard to see how I could ever enjoy them, but because of your helpful post, now I can. It's easy and free and there's nothing to sign up for. At all. Too bad that B person couldn't seem to figure things out. But, that's what happens when you don't follow simple directions, huh?
Delete5:36 Thank you for all those links. I knew they were "out there" but hadn't been able to find any before.
DeleteSo Gryphen, do you feel bad about spewing such hate and ignorance via the Levi iron dog thing?
ReplyDeleteI will never understand how grown adult bloggers can be so disgusting people.
How terrible that you are forced to read and repeatedly comment here.
DeleteSomeone's seriously jealous. Has Gryphen acknowledged your presence? That, alone, speaks volumes.
DeleteSound like Sarah:
DeleteInternet trolls? Those nasty, scabrous, hate-spitting folk who spend their sunlight-deprived days taunting, baiting and venomizing all over the Interweb’s anonymous comments sections in response to, well, just about about any article, column, video, photo gallery.
Turns out they really are awful people. Sociopathic, sadistic, narcissistic, cruel by nature, highly unpleasant to be around. They love to cause pain. They delight in ruining the beautiful. The more pure and integrity-filled something is, the more they enjoy corrupting it. Also, they’re antisocial. Poor dressers. Ungainly. Hairy in all the wrong places. Smell like soggy asparagus and old toenails. I’m just guessing.
But didn't God create B Obama? In his own image?
ReplyDeleteFox has the video up.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fox.com/watch/183733315515
It's spectacular, inspired, and inspiring. I loved the comic book-style graphics.
The series can have a profound impact on our society even if the only thing that comes from it is an understanding of the rules of science:
Test ideas by experiment and observation.
Build on those ideas that pass the test.
Reject the ones that fail.
Follow the evidence wherever it leads.
And QUESTION EVERYTHING.
~Neil deGrasse Tyson
How funny Gryph. You are in good company with your dilemma from last night. Even our dear Neil DeGrasse Tyson tweeted this:
ReplyDelete[neiltyson] GEEK DILEMMA: Cosmos airs the same time as Walking Dead. I may be biased, but I’m watching the Universe & DVR’ing the Zombies - http://bit.ly/1lM0lTj
It's not the liberal slant that has them in a tizzy, it's the literal slant. They can't handle the truth.
ReplyDeleteSarah the POS liar gets busted AGAIN!
ReplyDeleteThe evidence simply does not support Palin’s claim that “there are more uninsured today than when Obama began all of this.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/10/sarah-palin-obamacare_n_4937279.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
To 6:25 PM Add Katie Couric. She was on to Palin from the
ReplyDeleteget go! My husband and I will watch every Cosmos episode!
And to the man of distinction. Tom McGinnis, the Palin's
never sued you as they threatened they would. You had them shaking in their boots! You have much to be proud of as you
left Planet Earth. Hurry back!
That's Joe McGinnis.
DeleteRIP.
Bad science is believing in creationism when everything around you points to the opposite. What exactly is bad science? Is it when factual evidence casts doubt on your religious dogma?
ReplyDeleteHow to sucker a billion Christians
ReplyDelete...Do you know who understands this overarching rule perfectly? Mark Burnett, the goliath TV producer who single-handedly destroyed the modern world by popularizing reality TV. Burnett and his wife, “Touched by an Angel” actress Roma Downey, know exactly how sucker-able are the vast majority of the world’s Christians. Because they’re evil that way. Smart. I mean smart.
So smart are the Burnetts that they recently hacked together a terrifically lousy movie about the life and times of Jesus, called Son of God. They made it by cobbling new footage with bits of last year’s 10-hour History Channel miniseries on the Bible that was already quite perfectly lousy but still really popular because, you know, Jesus.
But of course, they didn’t stop there. The Burnetts recently travelled the country, shilling this new hunk of spiritual Valium to pastors, churches and shopping malls in hopes of pre-selling millions of tickets, safe in the the knowledge that devout Christians will see just about anything that reassures (but never, ever challenges or advances) their faith, no matter how poorly made, intellectually insulting or terminally boring it might be.
Are they right? Of course they’re right. There is tremendous money to be made endlessly reinforcing what the masses have already been told to believe, in keeping millions addicted to the very same drug they’ve been taking for millennia (hi, Fox News). Conversely, there is less money to be made – though much more fun to be had – sparking religious controversy, or at least trying to create something, you know, incisive, spiritually messy, or artistically interesting.
http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2014/03/04/how-to-sucker-a-billion-christians/
You really can't fix stupid.
ReplyDeleteyou can watch the new cosmos for free here
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tubeplus.me/player/2135562/Cosmos%3A_A_SpaceTime_Odyssey/season_1/episode_1/Standing_Up_in_the_Milky_Way/
Ain't no Tooth Fairy
ReplyDeleteAin't no Easter Bunny
Ain't no Santa Claus
Ain't no Thor
Ain't no Yahweh
Ain't no Randall.
DeleteShe's "over the moon"...
ReplyDeletehttp://time.com/18784/this-2-year-old-girl-is-really-really-excited-to-watch-the-new-cosmos/
I missed the first part, but absolutely adored the no-holds-barred rhetoric on the history of science and the reaction of the church to it. LOVED that Neil came out and said, point blank, science is a threat to the power of the church.
ReplyDelete