Cosmos: A Personal Voyage is a thirteen-episode television documentary series first broadcast in 1980 by the American public television network PBS. The series was written by astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan, writer Ann Druyan and astrophysicist Steven Soter, with Sagan himself as host. It covers a wide range of scientific subjects, emphasizing cosmology and its connection to the origins of life, while, according to the Greek Wikipedia, it also explores the evolution of species, the history of science, humanity's place in the universe and the possible existence of extraterrestrial life.
The series was the most popular in the history of American public television until the documentary The Civil War in 1990, and according to figures from 2009, it remains the PBS series with the largest worldwide audience. It won two Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award, aired in more than 60 countries and has been watched by over 500 million people. David Itzkoff of The New York Times described it as “a watershed moment for science-themed television programming.”
The series was produced in 1978 and 1979 by Carl Sagan Productions and Los Angeles television station KCET, a PBS member station, with a budget of about $6.3 million and more than $2 million extra for promotion. Its format resembles earlier BBC documentaries such as Kenneth Clark's Civilisation, Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man and David Attenborough's Life on Earth. Unlike those series, however, which were shot entirely on film, Cosmos used videotape for interior scenes and special effects, and film for location shoots.
The series stands out for its pioneering use of special effects, which make Sagan appear to walk through environments that are actually models rather than full-scale sets. Its soundscape is defined by the music of Greek composer Vangelis, with tracks such as Alpha, Pulstar and Heaven and Hell Part 1—the final section of which serves as the series' signature theme. The documentary's worldwide success brought Vangelis's music into millions of homes and introduced it to an international audience.
In 1989, Turner Home Entertainment bought the series from KCET. During the transition to commercial television, the hour-long episodes were shortened, and Sagan filmed new epilogues for several episodes, discussing discoveries and alternative views that had emerged since the original broadcast. A 14th episode featuring Ted Turner's interview with Sagan was also created and released in 1991. The series remained out of circulation for many years because of music copyright issues, until it was released internationally on DVD in 2000 with subtitles in seven languages and restored 5.1 sound.
In 2005, to mark its 25th anniversary, the Science Channel rebroadcast the series with updated computer graphics, new digital sound and information about scientific discoveries from the intervening 25 years—although it reduced the total running time from 780 to 585 minutes to accommodate advertisements. In 2009, Fremantle Media Enterprises digitally restored the original series for a five-disc DVD edition with additional scientific updates.
There was also a special 1986 edition, which included new digital animated scenes and filmed segments featuring Sagan, as well as new narration. This edition incorporated material from Sagan's book Comet and discussed his theory of nuclear winter—material that was not used in later television or home releases. It was much shorter than the original, running four and a half hours across six 45-minute episodes, and featured unique music composed by Vangelis specifically for it, with the track “Comet 16” accompanying the opening and closing credits.
The series' music was released on vinyl and cassette by RCA Records in 1981, featuring the signature theme “Movement 3” from “Symphony to the Powers B” on Vangelis's album Heaven and Hell, along with works by Dmitri Shostakovich, Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Igor Stravinsky and other composers. In 1994, RCA reissued the compilation on CD, and in 2002 a special two-disc collector's edition was released with full versions of many tracks that had previously been available only as excerpts.
The series' influence was also evident in its sequels. In August 2011, plans were announced for a new 13-episode series titled Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, featuring modernized special effects and updated scientific discoveries. The series premiered on March 9, 2014, on Fox and the following day on the National Geographic Channel, hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and produced by the two surviving original creators, Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, together with Seth MacFarlane. A third series from the same team, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, premiered on March 9, 2020, on National Geographic, again hosted by Tyson.
More than four decades after its first broadcast, Cosmos remains a benchmark for science television: it showed that cosmology, the origins of life and the history of science could become a major television event for hundreds of millions of viewers, paving the way for a tradition of science communication that continues today.
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