--- description: Seth MacFarlane's reboot of the Carl Sagan series steps into the culture war and gives a stirring defense of reason. title: Review of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, on Fox image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ee27a8fbdd6d6ac/6986849c06f2c14a2932dc69/cosmos-ep108_sc57_04666dj2-1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Review: Fox's Cosmos Takes Sides for Science by [James Poniewozik](/author/james-poniewozik/) ## James Poniewozik Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Mar 6, 2014 10:30 AM CUT  COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY: More than three decades after Carl Sagan's groundbreaking and iconic series, "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage," it's time once again to set sail for the stars. Host and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson sets off on the Ship of the Imagination to discover Earth's Cosmic Address and its coordinates in space and time in the all-new "Standing Up in the Milky Way" Series Premiere episode of COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY airing Sunday, March 9 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX and simultaneously across multiple U.S. Fox networks, including National Geographic Channel, FX, FXX, FXM, FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports 2, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Mundo and FOX Life. © 2014 FOX BROADCASTING CR: Richard Foreman Jr./FOX COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY: More than three decades after Carl Sagan's groundbreaking and iconic series, "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage," it's time once again to set sail for the stars. Host and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson sets off on the Ship of the Imagination to discover Earth's Cosmic Address and its coordinates in space and time in the all-new "Standing Up in the Milky Way" Series Premiere episode of COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY airing Sunday, March 9 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX and simultaneously across multiple U.S. Fox networks, including National Geographic Channel, FX, FXX, FXM, FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports 2, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Mundo and FOX Life. © 2014 FOX BROADCASTING CR: Richard Foreman Jr./FOXRichard Foreman Jr.—FOX by [James Poniewozik](/author/james-poniewozik/) ## James Poniewozik Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Mar 6, 2014 10:30 AM CUT There is a new Seth MacFarlane show on Fox this Sunday. But if there was any doubt that _Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey_ is no _Family Guy_, it is dispelled when the host references the planet Uranus and pronounces it “YOOR-inus.” This new version of _Cosmos_, which MacFarlane produced, is as earnest as _Family Guy_, _American Dad_, et al. are raunchy, but that doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining. It’s gorgeous, it’s absorbing, it’s impassioned, it’s awestruck and awe-inspiring. But is it necessary? After all, the Carl Sagan original of this documentary guide to the universe is still out there. And it’s not as if the principles of science have drastically changed in a few decades. As new _Cosmos_ host Neil DeGrasse Tyson cheerfully points out at one point, all of human history and knowledge is a few moments’ tick on the galactic calendar. The docuseries’ debut episode engagingly makes the case for the reboot. First, it uses today’s technical firepower to bring its narrative alive. In a nod to Sagan’s original series, it places us on a CGI spaceship, whizzing through the universe as it visualizes Earth’s cosmic “address” (Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster, Observable Universe). Elsewhere, it integrates playful digital tricks into Tyson’s narration–having an asteroid zip overhead as he walks through a forest and describes the extinction of the dinosaurs, placing him on a seashore as an animated amphibian saunters onto land. Imagination, Tyson says early on, is no substitute for the amazing reality of science, but they work (and play) together well here. A second case for the remake–which the series itself lays between the lines but the producers, including Sagan’s widow, [have stated flat-out](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/arts/television/seth-macfarlane-champions-new-cosmos-series-on-fox.html "undefined")–is the recent political-cultural attacks on science, be it climate change or the teaching of evolution in schools. The centerpiece of the first episode is a lengthy animated story about the persecution of the 16th-century monk and astronomer Giordano Bruno. The message is plain: there is a right side and a wrong side of intellectual history, and _Cosmos_ is not afraid to say that science is on the right one. (That Fox TV should broadcast such a thundering answer to the anti-science of some of the Fox News audiences’ favorite pundits may be ironic. But it’s no surprise to anyone who’s watched Fox’s primetime shows, from _Married… With Children_ on down to MacFarlane’s sitcoms, from line up solidly on the other side of the culture war from cultural conservatives.) But this _Cosmos_ is not a lecture–either a political one or a college-class one. Tyson is as personable a host as you could want, and the end of the first episode makes his connection to the material personal: he recalls being invited, as a young student, to visit Sagan at his lab and eventually having the older scientist become his mentor. “Science,” Tyson says, “is a cooperative enterprise, spanning the generations. It’s the passing of a torch from teacher to student to teacher.” It’s a sweet, personal moment, but it’s also something like a _Cosmos_ manifesto. It positions science not just as a tool, not just a gee-whiz academic subject, but a cultural tradition like literature or religion–a community larger than any of its members, nurturing and defending a light that grows brighter each generation. Some people may look at _Cosmos,_ with its image of Earth as a mote in time and space, as making mankind something small. Far from it: _Cosmos_ argues, fiercely and with wonder, that we are part of something unimaginably great. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/13005/review-of-cosmos-on-fox/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/13005/review-of-cosmos-on-fox/"},"headline":"Review: Fox's Cosmos Takes Sides for Science","datePublished":"2014-03-06T10:30:47.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T06:35:53.640Z","description":"Seth MacFarlane's reboot of the Carl Sagan series steps into the culture war and gives a stirring defense of reason.","url":"https://time.com/13005/review-of-cosmos-on-fox/","keywords":["Television","Fox","cosmos","neil degrasse tyson"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ee27a8fbdd6d6ac/6986849c06f2c14a2932dc69/cosmos-ep108_sc57_04666dj2-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"James Poniewozik","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/james-poniewozik/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ee27a8fbdd6d6ac/6986849c06f2c14a2932dc69/cosmos-ep108_sc57_04666dj2-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY","caption":"COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY","creditText":"Richard Foreman Jr.—FOX","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/13005/review-of-cosmos-on-fox/","name":"Review: Fox's Cosmos Takes Sides for Science"}}]}] ```