You all caught this right?
I was a bit disappointed by the first episode of the new COSMOS series, (That Big Bang explosion looked more like ‘Otto blew up the white phosphorus factory again’ then the Beginning Of Everything. And the Cosmic Calender? Groan! Can’t we have newer more creative metaphor?) but did you notice Neil deGrasse Tyson
looks a lot like Isaac the Bartender from The Love Boat?
“While you’re explaining the Higgs boson to the masses as we pass Saturn, I’d like a Fuzzy Navel, please!”
Added:
I sent the following as an email to our Glorious Blogmistress and she asked me to repost it here! Enjoy!
Thinking it through a bit more, I’m even more disappointed in COSMOS.
We’ve now seen more interesting footage, REAL footage mind you, not stills, of some of the planets than their animators made.
The whole thing felt wheezy. Nothing fresh! Bruno looked like Space Jesus as seen by Pixar. (“Goy Story”?)
Unlike in Sagan’s day, we’ve had 30+ years of looking at some hellfire explosions from Hollywood, so the bar is pretty high. They seemed to be going through the motions. (personal fav? At the end of Broken Arrow, John Travolta 1.) wins a brawl with Christian Slater but is 2.) impaled by a cruise missile in 3.) the middle of an exploding fireball in 4.) the middle of a train wreck! Now THAT’s what I’m talkin’ about!)
Even worse the whole thing is produced/written by Brannon Braga, most famous for his work — 25 years ago now — on Star Trek:The Next Generation. Some of the COSMOS tracking shots and camera angles(!) looked like NextGen! Which would be fine if this were 1988, but hey, can’t we do new?
Why Nukes are the Greatest Invention
But you have to go over to A Cold Eye to read it.
Ambiance 