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Television Education Science

Cosmos Remake Coming To Fox In 2014 193

Posted by timothy from the cool-swirly-spooky-music dept.
TheSync writes "The long-awaited remake of Carl Sagan's amazing Cosmos series, Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey, will be coming to Fox television next year. It will star astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Surprisingly, Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy fame is an executive producer. MacFarlane was introduced to Carl Sagan's widow Ann Druyan by deGrasse Tyson, and MacFarlane helped them pitch the show to Fox executives."
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Cosmos Remake Coming To Fox In 2014 More

Cosmos Remake Coming To Fox In 2014

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  • Let me guess (Score:5, Funny)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2013 @08:32AM (#43719121)

    In the Fox version the Universe is 6000 years old and the Earth is at the center of the Universe.

    • Nah, it'll just be subtitled: When Celestial Bodies Attack!

    • There is no way Fox is cancelling COPS and launching Cosmos. Expect the execs there to come to their senses pretty quickly and replace this with a reality show following the lives of transsexual meth-addicted circus performers.

      • There is no way Fox is cancelling COPS and launching Cosmos. Expect the execs there to come to their senses pretty quickly and replace this with a reality show following the lives of transsexual meth-addicted circus performers.

        Sadly, I'm inclined to agree with you. Anything that is smart and geeky, even if it dressed up with the wit and style of deGrasse Tyson, will be deemed too cerebral by Fox execs. They will move the show to an odd timeslot, the ratings will summarily drop, and then they will cancel the show, citing low ratings.

    • Here's an early preview... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v91m_F2NhfU [youtube.com]

    • You shouldn't confuse Fox News with the Fox Network. I think the two exist so that they can make their own news stories on slow news days.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by argStyopa ( 232550 )

      As opposed to the other mainstream media, who merely assume that the climate of a 5-billion-year-old planet will be catastrophically ruined by driving SUVs, and that the root of every bad thing that's happened in history can be pinned to blame some white guy, somewhere (after 1776, it would be an AMERICAN white guy).

      Hey, we all have our preconceptions, right?

    • It amazes me how Fox's entertainment division can put sheer crapfests like "American I-Duh-l" and "Jumping Around Like A Monkey With The Stars" on the air, and then schizophrenically give a greenlight to this, which promises to be great.

      • It amazes me how Fox's entertainment division can put sheer crapfests like "American I-Duh-l" and "Jumping Around Like A Monkey With The Stars" on the air

        I presume you are referring to "Dancing with the Stars" with the latter. That is an ABC show, and even having Woz on it wouldn't get me to watch it. (Though I actually don't mean that to be as negative as it sounds. I definitely watch some reality shows, and hate the "all reality TV is bad" mindset.. though admittedly, FF and being able to play-faster-t

  • Tyson has his own show, now. Nothing against the man, and I can really laugh when he is being funny - but isn't this a bit over the top ? OTOH, popularizing science is a great and lofty goal...
    • Tyson is our best 'science popularizer'. Thats what Sagan's true legacy is, the ability to speak to a good chunk of the masses and inspire them. Can you name someone else you think would be better at doing Cosmos?
  • Let's just hope it doesn't feature a fat oafish stereotypical insecure male, a hot wife, and a talking animal

  • This has made my day. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    There's no more Carl Sagan, no more Bill Nye on television, nothing except Mythbusters to inspire future generations of engineers and scientific thinkers. This has made my day, there may just be hope for the future yet.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      And then I saw that Seth MacFarlane is involved. And I lost all hope.

    • Except it won't be on public television, it'll be on Fox. There's a good chance any principle will be sacrificed before the first season is finished filming for spectacle. Gotta sell those commercial time slots.

    • And Mythbusters has taken to either blowing shit up or shooting guns at something almost every single episode. Hardly the stuff of inspiration.

    • There's no more Carl Sagan, no more Bill Nye on television, nothing except Mythbusters to inspire future generations of engineers and scientific thinkers. This has made my day, there may just be hope for the future yet.

      Perhaps the young generation isn't looking to TV for inspiration?

    • There's no more Carl Sagan, no more Bill Nye on television, nothing except Mythbusters to inspire future generations of engineers and scientific thinkers.

      PBS is the obvious response.

      But there are others and there is more to science and to scientific thinking than engineering.

      National Geographic Channel [nationalgeographic.com]

      Smithsonian Channel [smithsonianchannel.com]

      Science Channel [discovery.com]

      The Discovery Channel --- in its many incarnations --- has a lot to offer if you are willing to poke around a bit.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by TheSync ( 5291 )

        BTW, National Geographic Channel is a joint venture of National Geographic Television & Film and Fox Cable Networks.

      • All of the Discovery channels and NatGeo have declined since they where launched. They are not yet as bad as Discovery proper, TLC, or the History Channel, but they are sliding that way.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gmuslera ( 3436 )

      Well, at least Mythbusters is like watching to the letter all the equations of the theory of relativity compared with the "scientific" shows of the history channel. Or anything science related that shows Fox News.

      In the other hand, even What-If [xkcd.com] try to explore ideas till [xkcd.com] something [xkcd.com] big [xkcd.com] happens [xkcd.com]

    • Bill Nye is still around. He is all over the Planetary Society, for instance, and does a lot of science advocacy through them.

      Carl Sagan was the fucking Man. But I for one am glad to have both Bill Nye (on DVDs) and Neil Degrasse Tyson (sp?) around.

    • If Mythbusters is inspiring modern day engineers, well i feel bad for them. Mythbusters is scientifically crap TV.
  • Then I will watch for sure.
    • It's the next episode in MacFarlane's Star Wars remake series. Remember, at the beginning of Blue Harvest [wikipedia.org] Peter said "let's start with part four." He then went on to do parts five and six, so now he's going back to do part one to explain how it all began, only on a grander scale, possibly with Tom Hanks voicing a long-eared character with a pull string who is like the Forrest Gump of the universe. It will require RealPlayer 7 to watch.

  • What? (Score:2)

    by Enry ( 630 )

    Nah, only Sagan could do it. There's nobody around these days that could possibly....

    It will star astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

    Uhm..nevermind.

  • We leave Saturn for the deeper regions of the (Score:5, Funny)

    by funwithBSD ( 245349 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2013 @08:51AM (#43719265)

    cosmos and come upon Uranus...

    *giggity giggity goo*

  • Carl Sagan - the Billy Mays of Science.

  • Neil deGrasse Tyson will be an excellent show host. I'm looking forward to it, although it will be hard to beat The Elegant Universe series [pbs.org] offered on PBS.

  • Will (Score:2)

    by JustOK ( 667959 )

    Will it have billions and billions of Hollywood stars? Was Fox thinking of billions and billions of dollars?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Unless he WRTOE the script for the Oscars, i dont see the relevance here. So hes not a an actor/presenter, hes still a pretty accomplished producer/writer. By the way, hes been asked to do it again next year.... Macfarlane may make his money off fart jokes, but hes incredibly smart. I can guarantee there will be no Family Guy crap in Cosmos.

  • As Carl once said... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by freeze128 ( 544774 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2013 @09:28AM (#43719697)
    "If you wish to make a science show from scratch, you must first invent the universe."
  • Why surprisingly? Cause Family Guy is all fart jokes...right?
    Those ones with Stewie and the nerdy stuff like Star Trek and Star Wars are actually the writings of Seth Green who's known for his Phd. in Astrophysics and action figure collection.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jfengel ( 409917 )

      Green strikes me as a pretty smart guy, but I don't think he has a PhD. I don't believe he even went to college.

      Perhaps you're thinking of Brian May, the Queen guitarist who got a PhD in astrophysics.

  • sorry (Score:5, Funny)

    by wbr1 ( 2538558 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2013 @09:44AM (#43719865)
    Neil you killed Pluto. Fuck you.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by T.E.D. ( 34228 )

      Neil you killed Pluto

      Come on. Walking around flashing that highly eliptical orbit [wikipedia.org] far outside the plane the rest of the respectible planets oribit in, acting all chaoitc like a common comet, Pluto was clearly asking for it. I mean, its sad it happened and all, but hardly suprising. Someone was bound to attack Pluto sonner or later.

    • Captain Hindsight says:
      If you wanted Pluto to remain a planet you shouldn't have insisted we explore the solar system to find out why it behaves so weird.

  • They should have cast William Atherton

  • we can expect it gets cancelled less than halfway through its run
  • Didn't Robot Chicken already do this three months ago?

    ... Don't be glib about this stuff, Dad. It's a legitimate show and they beat you to the punch.

    ... You know, Dad, You're a real jerk!

  • Hypnotic Voice... (Score:3)

    by jzarling ( 600712 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2013 @10:53AM (#43720833)
    Carl Sagan had a voice that could lull you into a trance -

  • choices are:
    1) after first episode
    2) after third episode
    3) after 10 episodes, remaining episodes only on DVD
    4) after 22 episodes, wait a few years, then brought back for another 11 only to be cancelled again after 8 are aired
    5) after 25 years and counting.

    Also taking bets on when this show is aired:
    1) Sundays
    2) Fridays
    3) Every other Friday
    4) Randomly so nobody knows the show exists( i.e. Firefly scheduling).
    5) Sometime after baseball ends

    Well at least if Seth McFarlane is producing it, the amount of schedule fuckery Fox will do to the show will be far less than if Joss Whedon was producing it.

  • ... that a dude who is totally obsessed with space and Sci-Fi in general would be producing this? Especially when said dude clearly has the pull needed with Fox to get this off the ground; something Neil deGrasse Tyson and Ann Druyan clearly lack. Without MacFarlane this project would have, at best, been produced by PBS and seen by relatively few people.

    • to be fair to PBS, Cosmos was "first broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service in 1980 and was the most widely watched series in the history of American public television until The Civil War (1990)."

      • That was also before both Cable and Satellite were as widely available as they are now (rare in 1980, almost ubiquitous now), so PBS arguably had a larger and more diverse viewer-base back in 1980 (and even 1990).
  • It will star astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

    YESSS!

  • Cosmos Can't Be Cloned (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RandCraw ( 1047302 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2013 @01:00PM (#43722457)

    Cosmos was unique. 33 years ago an astronomer / story teller with a luminous passion for the past, present, and future of science stepped into the vacuum of imagination that followed Star Trek, bewitching and enthralling a generation of scientist wanna-bes. Sagan thrilled us largely because the world revealed by Cosmos was a joyous surprise.

    But rather than inventing a new series with fresh ideas, Cosmos II is just an attempt to reanimate dead flesh. It's a frankensteinian monster pieced together from someone else's long dead body of work. Magic can't be cloned,

    Fox is not PBS. Tyson is not Sagan. Cosmos should be allowed to rest in peace.

    • But rather than inventing a new series with fresh ideas, Cosmos II is just an attempt to reanimate dead flesh. It's a frankensteinian monster pieced together from someone else's long dead body of work. Magic can't be cloned...

      I disagree. There's a lot of neat stuff we've discovered since 1980, particularly with Hubble.

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