Heres my mid-series review of new Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson (now that Ive been receiving the disks on Netflix). Ive been comparing each episode of the old Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, to the new Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. Each episode of the new cosmos explores roughly the same topic as the old Cosmos. And just for reference, Im very familiar with Neil deGrasse Tysons work and I listen to him regularly on his netcast, Star Talk. I am a big fan of Tyson, just as I am a huge fan of the late Carl Sagan. It wasnt until watching episode six of the old and new Cosmoses last night that I realized a key difference between the two: books. In nearly every episode of the old Cosmos a book, or books and libraries, were featured and Sagan would be shown foundling a book while lovingly discussing the wonders it contained. The new Cosmos doesnt reference nearly as many books as the old Cosmos did. On that one count alone, the new Cosmos fails miserably. The new Cosmos also relies too much on special effects and CGI. For example, in episode 5 Hiding in the Light Tyson never once showed a linear representation of the electromagnetic spectrum, which I think is the easiest way for people to visualize whats on either side of the visual spectrum. Of course, in the old Cosmos, the electromagnetic spectrum is depicted on the floor of a stage while Sagan walks along its length explaining the differences from gamma rays to radio waves. Simple visualizations are better for learning complex ideas than fancy CGI. And finally, in the first episode, I was a little put off my the not so subtle religion bashing with the story of Giordano Bruno. Things Im liking so far about the new Cosmos is it isnt as Eurocentric as the old one was, featuring early little-known scientists from the Middle East to China. So far I like the new Cosmos, but it doesnt make science as easy to understand as the old Cosmos did, and it lacks the love and wonders of books that Sagan so eloquently imparted to the viewer in the old Cosmos. I also just noticed that, apparently, President Obama introduced the first episode of the new Cosmos when it aired on Fox. That was a really really really dumb move as most Fox News conservatives would have immediately stopped watching. Bad. Bad. Bad. More later. What do you think?
Posted on: Wed, 09 Jul 2014 20:04:42 +0000