| "Standing Up in the Milky Way" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey episode | |||
| Episodeno. | Episode 1 | ||
| Directed by | Brannon Braga[1][2] | ||
| Written by | Ann Druyan[3][4] | ||
| Narrated by | Neil deGrasse Tyson | ||
| Featured music | Alan Silvestri | ||
| Editing by |
| ||
| Production code | 101 | ||
| Original air date | March 9, 2014 (2014-03-09) | ||
| Running time | 44 minutes | ||
| Guest appearance | |||
| Seth MacFarlane asGiordano Bruno | |||
| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of episodes | |||
"Standing Up in the Milky Way" is the first aired episode of the Americandocumentarytelevision seriesCosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It premiered on March 9, 2014, simultaneously on variousFox television networks, includingNational Geographic Channel,FX,Fox Life, and others.[5] The episode is presented by the series host astrophysicistNeil deGrasse Tyson, directed byBrannon Braga, produced by Livia Hanich and Steven Holtzman, and written byAnn Druyan andSteven Soter.
The series represents a follow-up of the 1980s television seriesCosmos: A Personal Voyage byCarl Sagan,[6] now hosted by Tyson, and exploresastronomy,space and time,astrophysics,biology, and other diverse areas ofscience. In this episode, Tyson takes a tour of theSolar System and theMilky Way galaxy, explores the life ofRenaissance philosopherGiordano Bruno and his vision of the cosmos, goes through aCosmic Calendar from the beginning of the universe until the present, and ends with a tribute to Carl Sagan. The episode was first presented with a brief introduction by thePresident of the United StatesBarack Obama.[7][8]
The episode received positive reviews by critics, but was criticized on issues like the historical accuracy in the presentation ofGiordano Bruno's life. It was also nominated forPrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series at the66th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards,[9] an award it won.
The episode begins with Tyson setting off on the "Ship of the Imagination" to discover Earth’s cosmic address within theVirgo Supercluster and its place inspace and time. As the viewer floats along with him past the planets of theSolar System, he skims overVenus; he shows this planet's intensegreenhouse effect, as well as its extremely high temperatures. Then he exploresJupiter'sGreat Red Spot, a hurricane three times the size of Earth, and provides the first comparison showing how Earth's size diminishes when contrasted with the Spot's expanding view. He passesVoyager 1, the farthest man-made object from Earth, and explains theVoyager Golden Record and its purpose.
Tyson explains howhuman sight is limited in the cosmos and, as an example, shows us how extremely darkrogue planets are "seen" withinfrared sensors. He then examines thebubble theory, and how the observable universe might be just a bubble in a "never-ending" set of bubbles, analogous to drops of awaterfall.
In ananimated segment of this episode, Tyson discusses the life and vision of the 16th-century Italian philosopherGiordano Bruno (voiced bySeth MacFarlane)[10] as the person who championed a much more expansive understanding of the Earth's place in the universe, with the Sun being just one star among all the others. (Tyson subsequently dismisses Bruno's visionary experiences as unscientific, but is sympathetic to the persecution he suffered.) Later, he presents thehistory of the Universe on Carl Sagan'sCosmic Calendar. The episode ends with Tyson's brief speech about Carl Sagan's life and career, and how Sagan inspired him to become an astrophysicist.
Ann Druyan,Steven Soter, and astrophysicistNeil deGrasse Tyson were planning on producing a new, updated sequel toCarl Sagan'sCosmos: A Personal Voyage and continued pitching the idea to various television stations even after Sagan's death.[11] In 2008 producerSeth MacFarlane met with Tyson at theScience & Entertainment Exchange, where Tyson told him about rebooting theCosmos series.[12] MacFarlane took interest in the idea and presented it to theFox Broadcasting Company television network.[13]
"Standing Up in the Milky Way" was directed byBrannon Braga, and written by Druyan and Soter. The narrative sequence of the episode introduced the life of philosopher Giordano Bruno voiced by the series' executive producer Seth MacFarlane,[14] and other additional characters voiced by MacFarlane and actorPaul Telfer.[3] Thespecial effects for the episode were done by the DIVE VFX studio fromNew York City including "dimensionalization of star clusters, galaxies and nebula" for the show.[15] The episode also introduces a new "Ship of the Imagination" redesigned byconcept artistRyan Church, which was described byThe Verge as "J. J. Abrams’Enterprise."[16] The animated sequences of the episode were produced byKara Vallow.[17]
"Seth MacFarlane and Neil deGrasse Tyson present a unique and riveting glimpse at our universe in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. Embracing science and all it has to offer, the docu-series is unapologetic in its somewhat controversial depiction of organized religion, but it extends an olive branch for creative thinking and plays with concepts of faith in its whimsical view of the macrocosm."
The episode premiered with a 2.1/5 in the 18-49 rating/share and 5.77 million Americans watching it live onFox.[18][19] However,Nielsen estimated that a total of "8.5 million watched Sunday on the total of 10 Fox-owned networks, including Fox broadcast, National Geographic and FX."[20] Series executive producerSeth MacFarlane posted on the online social networking websiteTwitter that 12 million overall viewers watched theCosmos premiere live in the US alone and 17.5 million with DVR.[21]
"Standing Up in the Milky Way" was critically well accepted. John Teti fromThe A.V. Club gave the episode a mark of "B".[22] He stated "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is both ambitious and quaint. It attempts to convey humanity’s most expansive ideas in the space of a weekly 44-minute TV series. That’s ambitious," giving a positive review on the show's creation.[22] He did criticize the show for its "sloppy scripting that crops up more often later in the episode."[22] Max Nicholson fromIGN gave the episode a grade of 8.5 ("Great"), concluding "the docu-series is unapologetic in its somewhat controversial depiction of organized religion, but it extends an olive branch for creative thinking and plays with concepts of faith in its whimsical view of the macrocosm."[14] A positive review was also given bySlate journalist Phil Plait, who said that he sees the episode "as making the more interesting and bigger point about suppression of thought and the grandeur of freedom of exploration of ideas."[23]
Other reviews have criticized the historical accuracy of the segment onGiordano Bruno and question why the show did not portray more important astronomers of the time period, such asCopernicus orGalileo, or earlier medieval natural philosophers, such asNicole Oresme andNicholas of Cusa, who presented the possibility of a plurality of worlds centuries earlier than Bruno.[24][25] Reviewers also complained that the segment was historically inaccurate in its portrayal of Bruno's troubles as stemming almost entirely from his belief in many worlds.[24][25]
During the premier broadcast of the episode on March 9, 2014, onOklahoma City Fox affiliateKOKH-TV, the episode was interrupted for 15 seconds. The brief interruption of the episode by an advertisement forFOX 25 Primetime News at Nine coincided with a monologue by Tyson in which he describes human evolution.[26] KOKH issued a statement of apology for the event, which also rejected accusations that the incident was intentional, but "the result of operator error."[27][28][29]