On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 3:55 PM, Dave Sikula <[email protected]> wrote:
> I enjoyed it (I'm a big fan of Tyson, so anything with him is going to > have to work hard to lose me), but my wife, who is no dummy by any means, > was unfamiliar with some of the concepts and terminology, and (on a more > technical level) was put off by the animation. Personally, I'd have > preferred something non-Flash, but I understood why it was used. > > I'm also a fan of Tyson, but was disappointed in the first episode. To paraphrase what Tyson said early in the episode, there is more wonder in what is real, yet this episode contained too few real facts to appease me. I get that there is always a different demographic desired than any I'm going to be in for the rest of my life, but I'm not sure who the desired demographic is. I suppose lazy middle school science teachers can play this instead of actually teaching about the universe (goodness knows that's where I first saw Sagan's Cosmos), but the Bruno sequence alone guarantees no parochial school will touch it, nor will any public school in the Bible belt. What I remember about Sagan's Cosmos, and what I didn't see in the first episode of Tyson's, was the supporting evidence. Something I'd like to see, for instance, is a clear, concise explanation of what the big bang really is, how it occurred, how we know about it, and what it means for us. The LHC at CERN has been operating a few years now... there ARE answers, but instead it was glossed over during the year-of-everything metaphor. Just saying it was January 1st is insufficient for me. Maybe... hopefully... details will be forthcoming in later installments, but this first episode didn't contain enough substance for me. If I was younger and curious about the topic, I think I'd have found the episode interesting, but lacking in any detail to entice me to keep going another 12 episodes. This episode was supposed to "hook" the audience... to make them want to come back. So I must ask, come back for what? More animation of scientists ultimately proven right? More vague references to complex events and ideas? If I had to draft an essay about the new Cosmos, the first thing I'd need to come up with is a topic sentence... a main idea. So far, the best I can do is, "Cosmos introduces very broad concepts, painting each idea with a very broad brush." Somehow I doubt that's what Tyson, MacFarlane, and Bragga were setting out to do. And for their sakes, I hope that isn't the takeaway for the rest of the series. -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
