WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 45Astronomy: Would you begin, Ann, by
telling us a little bit about the new season
of Cosmos?
Druyan: I am absolutely bursting with
excitement about it, because it’s a way
of examining a bunch of questions that
have fascinated me my whole life, and it’s
also an opportunity to tell some stories
of profiles in scientific courage that are
completely unknown and really deserve
telling in a moment when the question
of what’s true is so urgent.
This season of Cosmos emphatically
deals with that question, as well as some
of the more recent developments in sci-
ence. It feels to me that this is a moment
in the history of science when we are
awakening to the other forms of con-
sciousness on this planet, the ways of
being alive and of understanding the
environment on the part of other life
forms on this planet.
Inevitably, if you’re interested in astro-
biology and you’re interested in the ques-
tion of intelligent life elsewhere, it requires
a certain degree of self-consciousness
about the life with whom we share this
planet. [This season is] called “Possible
Worlds.” So, we are exploring exoplanets,
and we are imagining the deepest human
future possible. Of course, inevitably, it’s
also examining the shadow on that future
that we all feel — that we should feel.
It seems to me that in every season of
Cosmos, the question has always been:
Are we ever going to be able to take the
revelations of science to heart in the way
that we take art to heart, the way that art
affects us? Will we ever be able to really
feel those things and awaken from our
stupor and act? That’s the big question,
I think, of our moment in history. Is
there anything that can make us value
the things we need to live — our air, our
climate, our water — more than we value
money? That’s the big challenge. Is there
anything that can make us think in the
timescales of science, not the timescale
of the balance sheet?
We have to live with our descendants
in mind. That’s the challenge. If Cosmos
ever succeeds on any level, to me, that’s
the critical one.Astronomy: What led you and your
associates to revive the series many years
after Carl’s original?Druyan: When Carl was alive, he and I
dreamed together of doing another series.
It was in our long-term and delightful
collaboration with Dr. Steven Soter. We
thought of doing a series called Nucleus.
We thought of doing a series called Ethos.
Each of them would have been, in their
own way, kind of a season of Cosmos.
But that was, tragically, not to be.So, after Carl’s death, I wanted to do
another season of Cosmos. I joined forces
with Steve Soter once again, and we
invited Neil deGrasse Tyson to join us.
Steve and I created an outline for a
new season of Cosmos, and for several
years, we went from network to network,
three in all. I think much to the horror of
Steve and Neil and our other colleague,
Mitchell Cannold, every network wanted
to do Cosmos, but none of them would
give me complete creative control, nor
would they give me the money necessary
to create the kind of cinematic, trans-
porting experience that I felt very
strongly Cosmos had to be.
So I was driving these guys crazy by
saying no, without having another swing
on the trapeze to grab ahold of, and just
believing that it was better not to do it
at all rather than to do something that
would be designed by a network and
budgeted by a network.
So, it didn’t happen for several years,
until I met Seth MacFarlane. We had one
of those great Hollywood dinners, where
he promised me he would send me to the
stars, that he would bring me to Peter
Rice, who was then the head of the Fox
television network and now has gone on
to even greater things — and he did. Seth
kept every single one of those promises.
He was absolutely passionate in his
desire to see Cosmos. Not just thatAn imagined human
settlement on an
exoplanet moon is
offered as a reminder
that we are capable of
greatness. ALL PHOTOS, UNLESS
OTHERWISE NOTED: NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC/COSMOS STUDIOS