It's been such a long time since the original broadcst of Carl Sagan's Cosmos series that I wondered if revisiting it would be an occasion for wonderment, or an occasion for laughter. Just the fact that it's been reissued in the past few years is amazing in and of itself. Someone - several someones, more accurately, including Dr. Sagan's widow and frequent co-author Ann Druyan - felt like it was worthwhile. And after reviewing the entire 13-episode series, I find myself agreeing with them.

Sagan's 13-hour journey through such concepts as the scientific method, the true vastness of the universe, the galaxy, and even our own solar system, the speed of light and the possible consequences of breaking that barrier, and first contact with other worlds does more for me now than it did when I was watching it before I was even ten. At the time, I remember thinking it looked cool, I remember that some of the concepts sunk into my head and stayed there, and I remember being confused by bits of it. I remember being a bit bored by the large portions of each episode that Sagan would spend talking about stuff that had already happened on Earth, and not even scientific stuff at that.

Sadly, I have to admit that a lot of the impact of Cosmos was lost on me. But then again, I don't think anyone expected eight-year-olds to be tuning in for the whole thing, let alone trying to grasp any
of it beyond the pretty pictures. Now,
more than twenty years later, I find that
the whole thing enthralls me. Even the historic-and-not-even-scientific stuff, for Sagan steeps his scientific lessons in hopeful humanism. All of that not-even-scientific stuff is, in fact, there for a
reason - throughout all 13 hours of Cosmos, Sagan is making the case for humanity as a unique addition to life on our own planet and throughout the universe. During the final episodes, he also discusses the dangers of nuclear warfare and other hazards that could bring humanity to an end. It would seem that Sagan is not only pleading humankind's case to the rest of the universe, but to humankind itself as well. One sequence, in which Sagan-as-space-traveler encounters Earth just before a global war wipes the planet's unique forms of life off the galactic map, is powerful and troubling (and Sagan wasn't a bad actor for these scenes either - step aside, Jodie Foster).

On DVD, Cosmos has undergone something of a transformation. Portions of some of the shows have been replaced by more recent footage from such sources as the Hubble Space Telescope, but only the video footage, and the revision isn't extensive. In cases where time has rendered the text of an episode obsolte, a "Cosmos Update" follows, recorded by Sagan before his death, bringing the science of that episode's topic up to date. Part of me, the video archivist, railed briefly against the visual revisions in some of the episodes, but I got over it pretty quickly. Cosmos is, first and foremost, an educational tool, and a powerful one, and it'd be a shame to rob it of that power by leaving it weighted down with relatively archaic photos from the 1970s when students today have seen Hubble shots, and the photos from the Sojourner rover on Mars, or shots of the space shuttle in flight - all things which happened after the original broadcast of Cosmos. On the balance of it, I now feel like it's almost disappointing that more revision wasn't undertaken.

Where the DVD is concerned, multiple languages are available (extending not only to the voice-over narration but to the menus themselves), and there's a really dandy option to hear just the music-and-sound-FX track in Dolby 5.1 Surround without Sagan's narration at all; listening to just a couple of episodes that way taught me a valuable lesson - I'm going to be buying the Cosmos soundtrack CD set pretty soon. The set also comes with a reprint of the original Cosmos book.

Warm and wise and hopeful and humanistic, Cosmos is a timeless look at what the 20th century's best-known popularizer of science did best. It's great to have it preserved in this medium. It's a bit ponderous to spread it over seven discs when dual-layering probably could have gotten it done in four, but that's a minor quibble at best. Very highly recommended.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com webmaster / editor-in-chief