Sagan's Cosmos "continues"

[kokoon]

[youtubehd]xb5tdqplTqQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/youtubehd]

[Guest pafr]

never saw the original, but I wonder how they might be quite different given 3 decades of science updates.

[azatoth]

never saw the original, but I wonder how they might be quite different given 3 decades of science updates.

I wonder if they will explain stuff that was already explained in the Sagan Cosmos which hasn't really changed, such as what redshift is etc.

 

However I am afraid it will be like any other US documentary about science, bombastic music and dramatic narration (which is very dumbed down) over exploding stars and other "awesome" stuff. Much more prefer BBC-type documentaries which usually have much less hand-holding and actually think that the viewer can remember what was said at the start of the program and no need to recap everything after every ad break.

 

The trailer certainly makes it look like any run of the mill documentary, like that The Universe series (an example of what I don't like in US science documentaries), but with higher production values. And Degrasse Tyson is no Sagan.

[kokoon]

As far as I'm concerned, the only way to make it look even worse would be to have that Brian Cox or whatever his name is, host the show. I just can't stand that guy.

[Guest boo]

 

never saw the original, but I wonder how they might be quite different given 3 decades of science updates.

I wonder if they will explain stuff that was already explained in the Sagan Cosmos which hasn't really changed, such as what redshift is etc.

 

However I am afraid it will be like any other US documentary about science, bombastic music and dramatic narration (which is very dumbed down) over exploding stars and other "awesome" stuff. Much more prefer BBC-type documentaries which usually have much less hand-holding and actually think that the viewer can remember what was said at the start of the program and no need to recap everything after every ad break.

 

The trailer certainly makes it look like any run of the mill documentary, like that The Universe series (an example of what I don't like in US science documentaries), but with higher production values. And Degrasse Tyson is no Sagan.

 

really? Horizon seems to be like that these days (i guess no recaps but plenty of stupid experiments) and not only that but the topics are not IDM at all. i haven't seen a documentary that really goes deep and made me think edit FOR A LONG TIEM.

 

a quote from the last Horizon episode i watched "when are we ever gonna learn? it's not about one thing. we say like it must be fat or it must be sugars. NO. it is always more complicated than that. always."..... i totally agree and found that kind of entertaining but it sounds like something i would say and i didnt even finish secondary school. i wanna hear intelligent people saying confusing things!

 

could recommend some decent british documentaries though?

[delet...]

It's funny, i was watching a couple of episodes of Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman today and thinking how much this series has jumped the gun on the carl sagan do-over series. It's smart, it's well shot, they talk to all the right people about their up to the minute ideas and don't just focus one one theory but try to show alternatives and outliers. In short, it's great, a good primer for all sorts of science (and philosophical) topics, you should watch it if you haven't already (the net won't let you down).

[delet...]

I also agree that Horizon tain't what it used ta be. Such a great shame, they still have all the magical powers of the BBC film and CG departments, but then they have to drive the program with a personality discovering the topic in a shallow way and from their generally narrow perspective. This personality cult television pisses me off. It can work if the thing is information dense and you don't spent more than 15% of the time, with close ups of these people's faces as they look contemplative with the sun setting on an out of focus landscape behind them. Or walking somewhere, then looking to the camera and droning on about how they feel about something. gawd, shut up you losers, this is a science show, you're on Horizon, have some respect.

[azatoth]

Agreed, that new BBC Horizon has become somewhat soft, but still a long way from the mush that the US documentaries are and have been. I blame the shortening attention-span of the average viewer, even those that actually watch science documentaries.

[delet...]

I blame the type of people that now lead the production of these broadcasts. There has been a decision made to broaden the marketability of the product (to women and people that are not interested in science, and especially now the the BBC sells so much of it's content on the overseas market, or does co-productions with overseas partners), so they add a few key ingredients to help do that.

 

One is a focus more on interpersonal minutia. So we have to know how the presenter feels about a subject, how it effects their lives, see more of the presenter in situ rather than just relying on narration. In the same pattern the personal lives of the scientists behind the science are sometimes presented. This kind of thing takes up an awful lot of time but it is thought to be needed because it helps to engage the fringe viewer in a more personable way. Have you noticed this with flagship nature documentaries, how they spend the last ten minutes of the hour showing how the episode was made, this is a very recent development. So we get the trials and tribulations of this cameraman, or that soundman. It's a nature doco, show me some fucking llamas, i'm over people for the day that's why i'm watching a nature doco for hells sake.

 

Of course now you are aiming your programming at all these plebs the second thing you will need to be doing is simplifying the content matter. So you will have to remind people how the most basic things work, what on earth electromagnetism is, how a plant creates oxygen, rather than just getting on with it.

 

The problem with all these changes is that the people that wanted to watch these kinds of programs in the first place are now turned away from it, so you fail the part of the spirit of the bbc to inform and cater to a diverse range of interests. And on top of that most of the extra viewers that you were targeting aren't interested in science, maths, technology or philosophy in the first place. So they won't be watching as you spend 3 minutes showing the scientists eating lunch in one of the cafeterias at CERN whilst they vaguely outline relativity for the 50th time on TV this year using the analogy of a train and a bicycle or satellite or something.

 

The whole thing is a disaster, and probably helps track a long term decline of the broadcaster itself.

 

... Sorry, this has been pissing me off for years, hence the longer post than i can usually be bothered with.

[Joyrex]

As far as I'm concerned, the only way to make it look even worse would be to have that Brian Cox or whatever his name is, host the show. I just can't stand that guy.

I always liked Brian Cox - I think he explains physics rather well. And that Manchester accent!

 

"Da yooniverse is fullah stahhs"

[delet...]

Yeah, he pisses me off. All those high budget films going to that noncy git, so we can see him waft up and down out of focus landscapes. Or look away from the camera, pausing in mid sentence, as if he's contemplating some deep shit. lord i can't stand him. So i can't watch the doco's that he's been in. Which have been pretty lavish numbers that ironically may have been bucking the trend that i was talking about, somehow i doubt it though. Personality cult television rolls on and cox is a poster boy for it with his shallow sagan impression. Watching a cox documentary is like being stuck for an hour in a small room with him whilst he continually tries out hippy girl pick-up lines on you.

 

 

"Da yooniverse is fullah stahhs"

 

[luke viia]

as far as brians hosting things goes, cox > greene, at least

[Bob Dylan]

Yeah I hate that if you take a full hour of those science documentaries, there's perhaps 25 minutes of true science, the rest is simply generic shots of wooshes and wipes and stupid CGI.

 

 

But let's have faith, we're talking about Seth MacFarlane and Nell deGrasse Tyson here. Just that combination is so... unusual and it cannot be compressed into the typical science TV show production.

[kokoon]

I blame the type of people that now lead the production of these broadcasts. There has been a decision made to broaden the marketability of the product (to women and people that are not interested in science, and especially now the the BBC sells so much of it's content on the overseas market, or does co-productions with overseas partners), so they add a few key ingredients to help do that.

 

One is a focus more on interpersonal minutia. So we have to know how the presenter feels about a subject, how it effects their lives, see more of the presenter in situ rather than just relying on narration. In the same pattern the personal lives of the scientists behind the science are sometimes presented. This kind of thing takes up an awful lot of time but it is thought to be needed because it helps to engage the fringe viewer in a more personable way. Have you noticed this with flagship nature documentaries, how they spend the last ten minutes of the hour showing how the episode was made, this is a very recent development. So we get the trials and tribulations of this cameraman, or that soundman. It's a nature doco, show me some fucking llamas, i'm over people for the day that's why i'm watching a nature doco for hells sake.

 

Of course now you are aiming your programming at all these plebs the second thing you will need to be doing is simplifying the content matter. So you will have to remind people how the most basic things work, what on earth electromagnetism is, how a plant creates oxygen, rather than just getting on with it.

 

The problem with all these changes is that the people that wanted to watch these kinds of programs in the first place are now turned away from it, so you fail the part of the spirit of the bbc to inform and cater to a diverse range of interests. And on top of that most of the extra viewers that you were targeting aren't interested in science, maths, technology or philosophy in the first place. So they won't be watching as you spend 3 minutes showing the scientists eating lunch in one of the cafeterias at CERN whilst they vaguely outline relativity for the 50th time on TV this year using the analogy of a train and a bicycle or satellite or something.

 

The whole thing is a disaster, and probably helps track a long term decline of the broadcaster itself.

 

... Sorry, this has been pissing me off for years, hence the longer post than i can usually be bothered with.

Lol okay check this out! I wiki'd those Horizon shows earlier today when you guys wrote about them. Then on wikipedia I surfed around a bit and got to Idiocracy the movie - from Horizons (via "dumbing down"). I remembered I came across that movie a few times now and so decided to watch it tonight for the first time, absolutely loved it btw.

Now I come back to this thread and read what you wrote and it reads like it's plot from that movie but it's in fact true!

[delet...]

sadly.

[apriorion]

"Don't want to sound like a dick or nothing, but it says on your chart that you're fucked up, you talk like a fag, and your shit's all retarded."

 

We're there, pretty much.

 

Anyway, I've been complaining about this worrisome trend for years. I first noticed it in the late nineties--I suspect that once cable channels like "Discovery" started to get involved in making documentaries, all of the other producers felt like they needed to keep up with the commercialized, glossy, psuedo-inspirational tone of those cable-shows. There are some good ones: some of the episodes of "Nature" that I've watched on PBS recently were quite good (e.g., the one on wolves in Chrenobyl was good, but the title had me a bit worried), so there's some hope. But let's not be mistaken here: even in the '80s, it's clear that Sagan was trying kinda cheesy moves to be "inspirational". That spaceship of the mind gimmick is a little insulting, when you think about it. But the greatness of a lot of his other illustrations and visuals makes up for that, in my view. The problem that Brian Greene and the Discovery people don't really seem to realize is that more is not necessarily better. "We need more wooshes, more orchestral creshendos, more relevance to their everyday lives! MORE!"

[Adieu]

If Sagan isn't hosting in aint the cosmos.

[joseph]

I'll only get behind it if Neil deGrasse Tyson writes an essay about how much he loves weed.

[kokoon]

This was pretty mediocre. I want to say it's really poor, but I'll wait another episode before I make that judgement. So far, it absolutely pales in comparison with Sagan's series. Zero attention to detail, uninspired delivery and bombastic FX.

[delet...]

yay, i was hoping that it would suck. Especially after obama apparently introduced it or something.

[kokoon]

You should check it out, if only just for the ridiculous lens flares and the sound effects.

[delet...]

'uu lens flare, sounds as enjoyable as watching the new star trek films. I will watch it though, /double clicks for a skim ...... i can see what troubled you, like you said, maybe it gets better in the next one.

[azatoth]

It wasn't as awful as I expected. Expected more awesome mega explosions of the stars and epic crerscending orchestrations, but I guess they have plenty of time to indulge in that since this was just an introduction. Liked the style of the animations, though. Tyson wasn't as insufferable as I feared.

[Guest AsylumSeaker]

This personality cult television pisses me off. It can work if the thing is information dense and you don't spent more than 15% of the time, with close ups of these people's faces as they look contemplative with the sun setting on an out of focus landscape behind them.

 

Yeah.. fuck that shit. Give me a dude in a turtle neck and tweed jacket staring out of an imaginary spaceship, childlike wonder in his smiling face, glowing in the light of nebulae and supernovae as he incants big numbers and superlatives.

That may sound slightly sarcastic but it's not.

[azatoth]

Buh-llions and Buh-llions of stars

 

*tokes reefer*