Standing Up in the Milky Way
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| "Standing Up in the Milky Way" | |
|---|---|
| Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey episode | |
| Episode no. | 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 |
| Running time | 44 minutes |
| Guest appearance | |
| Seth MacFarlane as Giordano Bruno | |
"Standing Up in the Milky Way" is the first aired episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It premiered on March 9, 2014, simultaneously on various Fox television networks, including National Geographic Channel, FX, Fox Life, and others.[5] The episode is presented by the series host astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, directed by Brannon Braga, produced by Livia Hanich and Steven Holtzman, and written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter.
The series represents a follow-up of the 1980s television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan,[6] now hosted by Tyson, and explores astronomy, space and time, astrophysics, biology, and other diverse areas of science. In this episode, Tyson takes a tour of the Solar System and the Milky Way galaxy, explores the life of Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno and his vision of the cosmos, goes through a Cosmic 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 the President of the United States Barack Obama.[7][8]
The episode received positive reviews by critics, but was criticized on issues like the historical accuracy in the presentation of Giordano Bruno's life. It was also nominated for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series at the 66th 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 the Virgo Supercluster and its place in space and time. As the viewer floats along with him past the planets of the Solar System, he skims over Venus; he shows this planet's intense greenhouse effect, as well as its extremely high temperatures. Then he explores Jupiter's Great 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 passes Voyager 1, the farthest man-made object from Earth, and explains the Voyager Golden Record and its purpose.
Tyson explains how human sight is limited in the cosmos and, as an example, shows us how extremely dark rogue planets are "seen" with infrared sensors. He then examines the bubble theory, and how the observable universe might be just a bubble in a "never-ending" set of bubbles, analogous to drops of a waterfall.
In an animated segment of this episode, Tyson discusses the life and vision of the 16th-century Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno (voiced by Seth 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 the history of the Universe on Carl Sagan's Cosmic 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.
Production
Ann Druyan, Steven Soter, and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson were planning on producing a new, updated sequel to Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage and continued pitching the idea to various television stations even after Sagan's death.[11] In 2008 producer Seth MacFarlane met with Tyson at the Science & Entertainment Exchange, where Tyson told him about rebooting the Cosmos series.[12] MacFarlane took interest in the idea and presented it to the Fox Broadcasting Company television network.[13]
"Standing Up in the Milky Way" was directed by Brannon 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 actor Paul Telfer.[3] The special effects for the episode were done by the DIVE VFX studio from New 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 by concept artist Ryan Church, which was described by The Verge as "J. J. Abrams’ Enterprise."[16] The animated sequences of the episode were produced by Kara Vallow.[17]