The cosmos is all there is, ever was, and ever will be.
So he says, standing at the metaphorical shores of the cosmos in episode 1 – The Shores of the Cosmos.
All episodes of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos are available on the Internet Archive. I hope I can trust them to have sorted out the copyright stuff. The episodes have been uploaded by a user named KCET: I hope, it is this one. I cannot not share this link!
I am watching it now, for the first time after decades. The show aired 44 years ago!
As a teenager I had watched Cosmos dubbed in German. It is a joy to listen to Sagan’s original voice. The German voice actor had changed tone and mood completely – I remember it as theatrical and overly dramatic. Phrases like grandeur of the cosmos do not seem to work in German the way they do in English. Whatever translation you try, it sounds corny or too solemn.
What kept me listening back then was Vangelis’ soundtrack. It has been etched into my subconsciousness. Nothing says beauty of the cosmos like their ethereal music!
The special effects are dated now. I can only imagine how leading edge this virtual flight through space had been in 1980. But still: The allure of Cosmos holds up today! This feels quite different from watching Jurassic Park 1 now versus then (Haha, the dinosaurs look like toys from rubber!).
A million half-conscious mental associations are rushing through my mind.
The commander steering the spaceship is reminiscent of spaceship enterprise. Same aesthetics, same sparse equipment, same control panels. Probably the same templates used by film studios.
But suddenly I also remember the enigmatic Space Odyssey 2001. It seems related, and I cannot fully explain why. I read the 1968 novel and novel 2 and 3 by Arthur C. Clarke. Of which I do not remember anything. But I do vaguely recall the mood of the books: It is something about cold war allusions that connects Cosmos and Space Odyssey for me.
The version of Cosmos available on the Archive has an introduction by co-author (and Sagan’s wife) Ann Dryan. It seems to have been recorded in 2000. Cold war has ended, science has made great strides. This was the time before 9/11, before the dotcom bubble burst, before the 2008 financial crisis, and before all the recent crises that came after those. Before social media. Before “tech” became a synonym for “software”.
Dryan exuded optimism as well as Sagan did in 1980, despite the threat of a nuclear war. The show aired in Europe at about the time I had decided to become a physicist. Save the world through science. Learn about nuclear physics, but prevent the bombs from being built. Cosmos was not the initial spark, but it amplified a mighty stream that tug me along: Towards the shores of knowledge.
Our civilization has again a chance of eradicating itself (my modest contribution to fight it, as a physicist, have likely not been sufficient). The cold – or not-so-cold – war has probably been revived.
Maybe, the spirit of Cosmos has lived on in my physics-inspired art. I had speculated as much.
Shortly before I found the episodes online, I created this:
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I’ve titled it Cosmic Cloverleaf.
Geeks elsewhere on the internet called it:
“Communication Tower from Blade Runner”
“an album cover, waiting for its music to be written.”
“the perfect science fiction movie poster, waiting for its movie to be shot.”
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