Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey

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Season 1
User Score
8.7

Universal acclaim- based on 356 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 317 out of 356
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 356
  3. Negative: 29 out of 356
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  1. jcasetnl
    Mar 22, 2014
    3
    Media and astronomy casualists will give this reboot high marks but it will be quickly forgotten. It's incredibly self-conscious, trying way too hard, and not letting the science be the star of the show. I love Neil Degrasse Tyson and listen to his podcast but he might be getting high on his own celebrity. He is describing science in borderline evangelical reverence, whereas Carl SaganMedia and astronomy casualists will give this reboot high marks but it will be quickly forgotten. It's incredibly self-conscious, trying way too hard, and not letting the science be the star of the show. I love Neil Degrasse Tyson and listen to his podcast but he might be getting high on his own celebrity. He is describing science in borderline evangelical reverence, whereas Carl Sagan was confident in all he didn't know, and why not knowing is a gift of its own. "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."

    Sorry Neil. I know Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan is a friend of mine. You, sir, are no Carl Sagan.    … Expand
  2. DaveHubbard
    Mar 9, 2014
    3
    A big let down. Poor graphics....no science....no good
    will not be watching any more episodes, what a a waste of time.
    I expected better with the news hype.
  3. dhgold
    Mar 11, 2014
    3
    I agree with the reviewer who said "glossy" and "shallow." The first episode was quite a disappointment, aimed, I believe, more at school age children than inquisitive adults.

    Tyson's performance was especially disappointing. I have seen him numerous times before in a variety of programs and he was always much, much better than this. His patently forced expressions of awe and wonder    I agree with the reviewer who said "glossy" and "shallow." The first episode was quite a disappointment, aimed, I believe, more at school age children than inquisitive adults.

    Tyson's performance was especially disappointing. I have seen him numerous times before in a variety of programs and he was always much, much better than this. His patently forced expressions of awe and wonder in Cosmos were embarrassing to watch........... although I assume that he does genuinely have such feelings.

    Evidently he is getting very poor advice and/or direction. Or maybe he is trying too hard. Or maybe he feels overawed by the franchise he has taken over and the shoes he has to fill.

    Whatever, I hope he quickly settles into the warm, intelligent, and engaging person that he has been in other programs.

    Oh, and I am sure it would really help if he had a decent script!!! My gosh, who is responsible for the trite, simplistic, banal words that he has to mouth?

    Well, I will keep my fingers crossed. It can only get better, right?    … Expand
  4. nos4
    Mar 18, 2014
    3
    This is a great disappointment from the original. With wooden animation instead of live actors, eighteen minutes of commercials, absolutely uninspiring music (listen to the original Vangeles soaring theme if you want to be inspired), and the big Fuzzy Door logo jumping in at the end as if they ran out of time and to remind us that Family Guy and America Dad were just part of the show. I'mThis is a great disappointment from the original. With wooden animation instead of live actors, eighteen minutes of commercials, absolutely uninspiring music (listen to the original Vangeles soaring theme if you want to be inspired), and the big Fuzzy Door logo jumping in at the end as if they ran out of time and to remind us that Family Guy and America Dad were just part of the show. I'm expecting Stewie to show up with his time machine to take us back to the big bang in one of these episodes. The original Cosmos was the most incredible and awe inspiring tv show I had ever seen. I'm afraid this one is a disappointment.… Expand
  5. Lekill
    Mar 26, 2014
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. My summary of the first episode: around 8 minutes in, you have the first american flag crudely intruding and (for us foreign spectators), setting the tone for this beatifully executed piece of propaganda. Once it gets going, and through some cliché "awe inspiring CGI" and some awkward scientific celebrity acting, we get a set of would-be science commandments wich tell you to accept observation as evidence and question everything (except the legitimacy of observation as evidence i guess). It then sets out to spend half the episode rambling about how religion BAD and science GOOD, by showing how science has martyrs too!, followed by a little "homage"(AKA copying) from the original series, and in the end you have Neil Tyson humbly retelling us the same old story of how he and Carl Sagan were BFF and totally not implying he's Sagan's rightful heir.

    2nd episode is a bit down to earth, but still masterfully manages to avoid talking about man-made global warming (wich is a fact to the most respectable scientific circles), by implying it's just because we're between ice ages. Double standards much?

    The show is produced by FOX for f**** sake.    … Expand
  6. cosmic68
    Apr 12, 2014
    3
    This is SO BAD! Overwrought, schmaltzy dialogue.
    He actually cried whilst looking through a telescope because it was where the 'birth of his science'. Way too long on embarrassing, 'dumbed down' animation sequences. CRINGE!
  7. Qgal5kap
    Mar 9, 2014
    2
    I'm very disappointed. Really cheap and cheesy graphics. The progression feels very rushed. The storytelling is fragmented. The music is at times poorly mixed, and annoying. I am a huge fan of Neil Degrasse Tyson, and I was hoping for something better than this. Surely the producers could have given him something more to work with than this.
  8. SharonEn
    Mar 18, 2014
    2
    What's up with the injection of politics and constant attacks on religion? Why not discuss evolution and present the scientific case without attacking intelligent design? Why describe CO2 as a poisonous gas when it is necessary and indeed promotes all plant life, which in turn is the food source for practically all animal life?

    The irony is that the show repeatedly chastises    What's up with the injection of politics and constant attacks on religion? Why not discuss evolution and present the scientific case without attacking intelligent design? Why describe CO2 as a poisonous gas when it is necessary and indeed promotes all plant life, which in turn is the food source for practically all animal life?

    The irony is that the show repeatedly chastises Christianity for its doctrinaire approach, yet the show and its host fail to see that they are behaving the exact same way. I guess it's just too tough to persuade people with logic, so the show just falls back on political manipulation and disrespectful stereotyping. What a lost opportunity to have a meaningful discussion!    … Expand
  9. pr0t0
    Mar 30, 2014
    2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I've just watched the third episode, and I have to say that overall, I'm deeply disappointed.

    The show is an almost non-stop and overt attack on theology. I'm not defending religion; I generally abhor it. But I feel that the show is giving religion too much power by working so hard to refute it, and short-shrifting science in the process. It makes me wonder if Ann Druyan has had to deflect attacks from the religious right over the last few decades, and this show is the product of that conflict.

    There's almost no science in this science show. What little there is, is empty and shallow. Everything has been dumbed-down and Tyson's narration seems to meander and dance around the science without seizing the opportunity to put a fine point on it. For me at times, the dialogue seemed to be just background noise lost against the CGI, and the whole things seems to lack any cohesive structure.

    They even ended episode two with animation and Sagan's narration from the original series. That 60 seconds was better than anything else done in the whole of these three episodes.

    "These are just some of the things molecules can do, given 4 billion years of evolution."
    - Carl Sagan

    Now that's just not dialogue, it's poetry. It is at once succinct and eye-opening/mind-blowing; and the new series hasn't come anywhere close to it. Sagan's delivery was full of awe, wonder, and humility. Tyson's delivery by contrast seems more like a bravado "I got this." Certainly Tyson has earned the chance to pick up where Sagan left off, but I think the new Cosmos would have been in better hands with Brian Edward Cox.

    I'll probably still watch it and hope beyond hope that it will improve. They have 10 more episodes so I have to think they will go in-depth about...something.

    Oh, and the animation used to depict historical events is beyond awful.    … Expand
  10. Saganite
    Jun 16, 2014
    2
    The series was an awful sequel to Carl Sagan's historic work. High-talking Tyson delivered a sixth-grade level clunker. Saturday mornings would have been the best times for airing it, along with the other cartoon shows.

    Far too much time was spent on the negative effects of religion upon scientific progress. Philosophy, not science, is the word I associate with this series. This    The series was an awful sequel to Carl Sagan's historic work. High-talking Tyson delivered a sixth-grade level clunker. Saturday mornings would have been the best times for airing it, along with the other cartoon shows.

    Far too much time was spent on the negative effects of religion upon scientific progress. Philosophy, not science, is the word I associate with this series.

    This series was not about the Cosmos. A better title would have been, "History of the Human Race."    … Expand
  11. shooter17
    Mar 23, 2014
    1
    Extremely boring and the hosts voice puts me asleep. He has a very hypnotic rhythm to his speaking pattern. Great program if you need a show to put you asleep at night but not great for entertainment.
  12. koprivaaj
    Mar 10, 2014
    1
    Way too much time denigrating Christianity in general and the Catholic Church specifically. Too much cheesy animation and non-factual content. Very disingenuous to slam Catholics and then not mention that the father of the Big Bang Theory was a Catholic Priest. Poorly done.
  13. Neferium
    Mar 13, 2014
    1
    This was aired on Fox for a good reason, its because this has been created for children, adult sized children or rather catered to the below average layman, I mean I would show my children something more educational like the original series. If I was going to continue the legacy of Carl Sagan I would of at-least treated the original series to a wine and dine before I **** it. Niel & SethThis was aired on Fox for a good reason, its because this has been created for children, adult sized children or rather catered to the below average layman, I mean I would show my children something more educational like the original series. If I was going to continue the legacy of Carl Sagan I would of at-least treated the original series to a wine and dine before I **** it. Niel & Seth have Carl Sagan turning over in his grave. If they where gonna reboot a good show like cosmos atleast have the decency of just completely coping it and using expensive computer animation like they did without all the religion and no actual science for their pompous blockbuster special effects version of chapter one and a few paragraphs from an introductory astronomy text book called the cosmic perspective 6th edition. So yeah its nothing original its based and a ripped off the textbook by Bennett, Donahue, Schneider and Volt (check it out, read the book and you'll see).

    However I cannot give this a 0 because I enjoyed the irony of their prime time animation about stupid people brainwashed by religion and carrying on like the herd mentality sheep that watch Fox in the first place.    … Expand
  14. AncientMartian
    Mar 14, 2014
    0
    The first episode was an open attack on religion; especially Christianity. Even as an agnostic I'm against attacking one's religious beliefs. I have seen Neil Degrasse-Tyson in other astronomy videos and I found him to have all the personality and charisma of drywall. He's as out of place in Cosmos as a NeoNazi at a synagogue.
  15. raourike
    Mar 9, 2014
    0
    This is a total letdown - in content, in science. This host is probably the most uninteresting character - has no excitement or narrative ability. Don't waste your time
  16. sciborg
    Mar 11, 2014
    0
    If you were expecting the humility and wonder that Carl Sagan brought to the original series, don't look for it in this glossy but shallow remake. Neil DeGrasse Tyson bring a particular arrogance to the new Cosmos. An overly long segment in the first episode is spent proselytizing about the evils of organized religion for suppressing ideas not based on evidence, but as the host admits, onIf you were expecting the humility and wonder that Carl Sagan brought to the original series, don't look for it in this glossy but shallow remake. Neil DeGrasse Tyson bring a particular arrogance to the new Cosmos. An overly long segment in the first episode is spent proselytizing about the evils of organized religion for suppressing ideas not based on evidence, but as the host admits, on "a lucky guess". I'm not kidding.

    The show isn't about standing up for the scientific method, as it claims. It is clearly promoting the status quo of modern academia, evidence be damned! Apparently Neil DeGrasse Tyson believes that church leaders centuries ago should have had enough precognitive ability to know that science eventually would provide the evidence to show they might be mistaken.

    This is not Sagan's Cosmos!    … Expand
  17. Scottymac
    Mar 17, 2014
    0
    I fell asleep and then a bad Hannah Barbara cartoon interrupted the show. I was very underwhelmed by the whole experience given what other shows have done since the original. I'll stick with Morgan Freeman and Sagan on Netflix. "Wonders of the Universe" is probably the true successor to Cosmos, not this. Not like this.
  18. VetusRex
    Mar 25, 2014
    0
    Look I love science ,but I am also a christian and this show continually pushes into your face that they believe there isn't a God and that you are ignorant and fearful if you think there is one. They also keep hating on the church and how it kept science from progressing which I admit is partially true. They also only merely hint that most of these people were faithful and believed in God.
  19. Chulann
    Apr 21, 2014
    0
    Just watched another episode of Cosmos, and have decided enough's enough. I can't see the connection between this rambling biography and the title of the series.
    Request to NatGeo: Please, please, dump this show and bring back the true Cosmos.
  20. Jupiter9123
    Apr 15, 2014
    0
    A thoroughly absorbing show, interesting, stimulating, and endlessly entertaining. I find myself not only re-watching, but also looking forward to the next episode. Neil de Grasse Tyson presents so well. A must for all!
  21. TheLegend
    Jun 1, 2014
    0
    Please...the Cosmos? This should be the Inconvenient "Truth" Part Two. So glad the program covers planet Earth rather than the Cosmos...not. This is political propaganda not science.
  22. MasterZoilus
    Jun 13, 2014
    0
    This just goes to show, how dumb America has become. A show like this considered "educational" simply because its not honey boo boo, something Kardashian or some other dopey reality show! The host's over done facial expressions look like he's on the toilet trying to "push one out" as he talks. They never spend more than 5 Minutes on one subject...let talk about a library, then super novas,This just goes to show, how dumb America has become. A show like this considered "educational" simply because its not honey boo boo, something Kardashian or some other dopey reality show! The host's over done facial expressions look like he's on the toilet trying to "push one out" as he talks. They never spend more than 5 Minutes on one subject...let talk about a library, then super novas, then dark matter, how the world was mapped, the galaxy's gravitational pull, a scientist, an astronomer...etc etc all within the first 20 minutes!! Good god its like watching a flea on crack!

    It has some decent SFX at times but that's it, if you want to watch something better get "the Universe" on bluray. Or watch Nova on PBS . This Sugary high , Attention Deficit Disorder, lack of intelligence demographics geared show, is exactly...that! Those with some signs of REAL intellect, best stay away from this Sharknado for the brain "educational" show.    … Expand
  23. ZeroNihilism
    Sep 23, 2014
    0
    science? haha no

    #fail

    Unfortunately this horrifically poor show has ended with cancelation albeit not swiftly enough according to justice. This was a huge time waste with no redeeming value.

Awards & Rankings

24
#24 Best TV Season of 2014
14
#14 Most Discussed TV Season of 2014
52
#52 Most Shared TV Season of 2014

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
83

Universal acclaim - based on 19 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 19
  3. Negative: 0 out of 19
  1. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Robert Lloyd
    Mar 10, 2014
    80
    Crafted to satisfy those generations of viewers for whom even "The Empire Strikes Back" looks quaint and old-fashioned, it is no less thought-provoking for being made to be fun.
    Read full review
  2. Variety
    Reviewed by: Geoff Berkshire
    Mar 7, 2014
    80
    The premiere episode nimbly balances information with visual spectacle, forging a middle ground between sci-fi and science fact.
    Read full review
  3. People Weekly
    Reviewed by: Tom Gliatto
    Mar 7, 2014
    100
    It's educational, kid-oriented and fun, and Tyson us confidently smooth popularizer of science. [17 Mar 2014]
See all critic reviews »