

Seth MacFarlane had met Druyan through Tyson at the 2008 kickoff event for the Science & Entertainment Exchange, a new Los Angeles office of the National Academy of Sciences, designed to connect Hollywood writers and directors with scientists. Seth MacFarlane was instrumental in obtaining network funding for Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, and also serves as an executive producer. They had struggled for years with reluctant television networks that failed to see the broad appeal of the show.
#Watch cosmos a spacetime odyssey online free series#
įollowing Sagan's death in 1996, his widow Ann Druyan, the co-creator of the original Cosmos series along with Steven Soter, and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson sought to create a new version of the series, aimed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible and not just to those interested in the sciences. The show has been watched by at least 400 million people across 60 countries, and until the 1990 documentary The Civil War, remained the network's highest rated program. The show has been considered highly significant since its broadcast David Itzkoff of The New York Times described it as "a watershed moment for science-themed television programming". The original 13-part Cosmos: A Personal Voyage first aired in 1980 on the Public Broadcasting Service, and was hosted by Carl Sagan. Cosmos has been critically praised, winning several television broadcasting awards and a Peabody Award for educational content.Ī sequel series, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, premiered on March 9, 2020, on National Geographic. The series concluded on June 8, 2014, with home media release of the entire series on June 10, 2014. The series has been rebroadcast internationally in dozens of other countries by local National Geographic and Fox stations. The remainder of the series aired on the Fox Network, with the National Geographic Channel rebroadcasting the episodes the next night with extra content. The series premiered on March 9, 2014, simultaneously in the United States across ten 21st Century Fox networks.

The series loosely follows the same thirteen-episode format and storytelling approach that the original Cosmos used, including elements such as the "Ship of the Imagination" and the " Cosmic Calendar", but features information updated since the 1980 series, along with extensive computer-generated graphics and animation footage augmenting the narration.

The show is produced by Brannon Braga, and Alan Silvestri composed the backing score. Among the executive producers are Seth MacFarlane, whose financial investment was instrumental in bringing the show to broadcast television, and Ann Druyan, a co-author and co-creator of the original television series and Sagan's wife. The show is presented by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who, as a young high school student, was inspired by Sagan. This series was developed to bring back the foundation of science to network television at the height of other scientific-based television series and films. The show is a follow-up to the 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which was presented by Carl Sagan on the Public Broadcasting Service and is considered a milestone for scientific documentaries. Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is a 2014 American science documentary television series.
