For my birthday I bought the original Carl Sagan Cosmos TV episodes on DVD. (Thank you Bill and Carol for the Amazon gift certificate!)
When I first watched this series, Dr. Sagan got me through a hard time in my life. There is something very soothing and comforting about Carl Sagan.
Young people would find the series boring. Dr. Sagan talks slowly with dramatic pauses. The episodes are long drawn out affairs with lengthy special effects overlayed with music crescendos. Nothing moves quickly in Cosmos and that is what I love about it.
Dr. Sagan gives you plenty of time to think about what he is saying and conveying. Those lengthy pauses are pauses for thought. The music and special effects stir the imagination. Cosmos is a meditation.
The show originally aired on PBS and every so often they had telethon fund raisers, where you could pledge money to this organization. They had great commercial free TV, non interrupted episodes of Cosmos and Nova, as well as sitcoms and other programs like Sesame Street. During one telethon, they were offering to the first 20 callers or so the album, The Music of Cosmos. Well, I dialed my finger to the bone to get one, and I did! Not only that, I got to speak with the President of PBS. I still have that music record today! I wouldn’t part with that for anything, even though I no longer have a record player. My next gift to myself will be the CD.
Watching the series now, it is eerie the accuracy of Dr. Sagan’s predictions for the future. I don’t currently agree with everything he believed, but there is nothing outdated in his commentaries.
Thank you Dr. Sagan.
