Wednesday, April 23, 2014

I really want to like "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey"...

but I just don't.

When I first heard about "Cosmos" and saw the ads for it, I was excited. A science show! A well funded science show on over-the-air tv! I'm all for science outreach, and making it look as cool as it really is. I got a little nervous when I read that it was being produced by Seth MacFarlane, because I have yet to enjoy any of his comedies, but I thought it would probably still be good. Money and sponsorship has to come from somewhere.

I watched the first episode with Dear Husband. The animations were stunning. The episode as a whole was...underwhelming. DH, who while not a scientist is highly logical/mathematical and a great appreciator of good CGI, felt the show was boring, slow, and kinda wandering. He has not watched another since, so I have been watching them on my own as I have time.

Now, I'm not old enough to have seen the original "Cosmos", so I'm judging the new "Cosmos" on its own merit, so anything that's an homage to the original, unless obvious or called out as such by others, is lost on me, as it will be for anyone under, say, 30.

My feelings about "Cosmos" haven't really changed since that first episode, which is disappointing because I want to love it. It's slow. It could be doing SO much more with the time and obvious animating talents at its disposal. It's historical segments* are full of half-truths, and give me the impression of an 8th-grade history paper. It's anti-religion bent is just tired. I could accept the latter if the former were honest. I could accept the former if the latter were absent, toned down or at least not directly tied to the former. As it is, I just sit there waiting through the historical sections for inaccuracies, anachronisms and the projection of 21st century thought patterns onto previous generations. Tyson made some not-as-subtle-as-he-thinks snide remark about religion and I just want to tell him to get on with it already. I'd have rather had a 5 minute atheist chit-chat in the first episode and just on with the science already.

For the record, I actually liked some of the taking-down Young Earth Creation (YEC) segments, particularly the one in "A Sky Full of Ghosts". I doubt it converted as many as Tyson thinks it should, but at least it's footing is firm--light travels this fast, ergo we shouldn't be able to see almost anything in the sky if the universe is only 6000 years old. We see lots of stars and galaxies, ergo the universe is much older.

Though Tyson gets a bit hand-wavy when it comes to the frontiers of the knowledge of science (multiverse, how exactly we got from chemical soup to single celled organisms), the science content is solid, if spread a little thin. I really think they could have fit more science content in, if they cut down the semi-history, Tyson spoke at a normal pace and they grouped topics a little more strategically.

Actually, Tyson as narrator poses a bit of a stumbling block for me to like this show. I know he's an astronomer rockstar, that he is a beloved science communicator, etc. But his tone and cadence remind me of the one that my mom uses in teaching 2s and 3s Sunday School, with a dash of pseudo-drama. I don't mind when people talk with their hands, but his hand movements feel fake, an affect someone told him was an effective presentation technique. Not that this is a great reason to dislike "Cosmos" but it does make it a bit of a chore, a kind of science devotional for me to watch the show. It's that class on the awesome topic taught by a teacher you can't stand.

Overall, I'm not sure that this incarnation of "Cosmos" will be as effective as the original. Of course, maybe I'm the wrong audience, but I have yet to find someone who didn't love the original that is taken with the new one. And preaching to the choir is not a successful evangelism, pardon me, communication method.

*A separate problem for me is the horrific accents for some of the animated segments. Some are fine, but some are just terrible.

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