01 – The Shores Of The Cosmic Ocean

“The Cosmos is all that ever is, was or will be.”
- Carl Sagan

And so begins Carl Sagan’s “Personal Voyage” through space, time, thought, spirituality and, most importantly, humanity.

What makes Cosmos a success is Sagan’s ability to balance a wide range of topics, ideas, and even modes of thinking into a coherent narrative. He uses science as the foundation for his Journey, but through science he tells the story of the Cosmos, and humanity. Perhaps most importantly, Sagan allows us to follow him on his journey, to become an integral part of that journey – to explore ourselves as well as the Cosmos.

02 – One Voice In The Cosmic Fugue

In One Voice In The Cosmic Fugue, Carl Sagan frames “the search for who we” are in terms of terrestrial and extra-terrestrial biology. That through our explorations of our own biological history, as well as the speculation and potential study of life from other worlds, we will have a greater awareness of who we are – as individuals and as a civilization.

03 – Harmony Of The Worlds

Harmony of the Worlds tells the story of humanity’s deep connection to the stars we see in the night sky. Sagan brings us from the campfires of early hominids to the naming of the constellations to the developments of both astrology and astronomy. All of it is framed within the context of finding our place within our own solar system, and explaining how it all works. This episode, then, is about “distinguishing fact from speculation.”

04 – Heaven And Hell

Change is a constant. In Heaven and Hell, Carl Sagan details how change happens, in large and small scales, on Earth and throughout our Solar System. And he does so to frame an important point: Here, on Earth, humanity now has nearly the same potential to affect change as do natural processes. Indeed, as Sagan carefully points out, there may be a very little difference between the temperate home we know, and the harsh realities of other worlds.

05 – Blues For A Red Planet

Carl Sagan uses humanity’s exploration, and obsession, with Mars as a kind of mirror for humanity. To do so, Sagan includes references to such works as H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and an excerpt from Gustav Holst’s composition, Mars, from his suite titled, The Planets. Sagan also provides a number of scientific and historical contexts for Mars, including Percival Lowell’s preoccupation with the idea of canals on Mars and Robert Goddard’s dream to invent a machine that could take people to the Red Planet.

06 – Travellers’ Tales

Traveller’s Tales tells the story of human exploration – from the Dutch Republic in the 1600s, to the Voyager missions of the late 1970s, to speculation of missions to Saturn (a reality as of the 1997 launch of the Cassini/Huygens mission). But even more important than the physical explorations is the commentary on the explorers themselves – on what drives humanity to look beyond its immediate horizons.

07 – The Backbone Of Night

Central to this episode is a question from Carl Sagan’s own childhood: “What are the stars?” Sagan uses this question as the starting point for a discussion of humanity’s journey of exploration. The innocence of youth, reinforced by a trip to his old sixth grade classroom in Brooklyn, is a wonderfully poetic device. Childhood curiosity and inherent drive to explore and understand become a metaphor for the beginnings of humanity’s understanding of the Cosmos.

08 – Journeys In Space And Time

Journeys In Space and time is an episode in which Carl Sagan mixes theoretical physics and technological speculation into a metaphor for the great perils of his (and our) time. It’s an interesting “thought experiment” – a device Sagan also uses to explain Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. But it’s also quite valid. As Sagan says, “space and time are … intertwined.” What we do now, will have profound influences on the future.

09 – The Lives Of Stars

“The Lives of Stars” is about the great mysteries of the infinite.  In this episode, Sagan takes a break from the social commentary to explore the infinitely small and infinitely large.  Indeed, there is a preponderance of scientific information on everything from atoms to stars.  But Sagan does pull it altogether, philosophically, by way of his assertion that our lives are intricately interwoven with the lives of stars.  As Sagan is so fond of saying, we are “star stuff” – which means that we are, fundamentally, a part of nature.  And in the mortality of the stars we see at night, we can see a metaphor for our own mortality.

10 – The Edge Of Forever

“The Edge of Forever” is an episode in which Carl Sagan confronts the greatest of scientific mysteries: the origins of the cosmos itself – and what its ultimate fate may be. It’s an episode that takes the grand scale of “The Lives of Stars” and expands it to the infinite past and infinite future. And to help confront these questions, Sagan turns to a unique source: religion. Of course, the religious elements of the episode are included in tandem with the scientific revelations of Sagan’s time. But it is noteworthy that Sagan acknowledges the mysticism associated with these deeply profound questions.

11 – The Persistence Of Memory

“The Persistence of Memory” is a natural progression from “One Voice In The Cosmic Fugue.” If that episode traced the evolution of life itself, “The Persistence of Memory” traces the evolution of thought and memory, from its beginnings in our genetic code all the way through our modern Information Age. Though, when Sagan filmed Cosmos, the internet was still over a decade away from truly exploding worldwide. But that is what makes this particular episode so prescient and profound. Sagan recognized the importance of not just having ideas, but communicating, debating, and storing those ideas. The internet is just the next step in the evolution “from genes to brains to books” to libraries.

12 – Encyclopedia Galactica

“Encyclopedia Galactica” is about the possibilities of discovering, exploring, and communicating with alien civilizations. In this episode, Carl Sagan takes us from UFO sightings, to Egypt, to a hypothetical compilation of information about the Milky Way galaxy. As Sagan says, this journey is part of the search for who we are as a civilization. There are also some undercurrents about the future survival of our species, a theme that will receive full prominence in the final episode. But for now, because discussion of extra-terrestrials is, necessarily, speculative, Sagan takes great care in separating fact from the speculation by both himself and others.

13 – Who Speaks For Earth?

“Who Speaks For Earth?” is Carl Sagan’s triumphant closure to a documentary of epic proportions. In this episode, Sagan pulls together every thread of science, history, religion, politics and philosophy into deeply urgent and profound questions: “If we do not speak for Earth, who will? If we are not committed to our own survival, who will be?” To answer these questions, Sagan retraces his steps through the cosmos – both the series and the universe in which we evolved and now inhabit. He does this to underscore a very important point: that we are “starstuff … a way for the universe to know itself.” That quest for knowledge is central to our existence and, as Sagan says, central to our survival.

Images	Articles
	01 – The Shores Of The Cosmic Ocean
	02 – One Voice In The Cosmic Fugue
	03 – Harmony Of The Worlds
	04 – Heaven And Hell
	05 – Blues For A Red Planet
	06 – Travellers’ Tales
	07 – The Backbone Of Night
	08 – Journeys In Space And Time
	09 – The Lives Of Stars
	10 – The Edge Of Forever
	11 – The Persistence Of Memory
	12 – Encyclopedia Galactica
	13 – Who Speaks For Earth?