Wednesday 21 September 2016
499 Cosmos
First viewed : July 1981
This monumental documentary series about life, the universe and everything seemed like archetypal BBC2 fodder but was actually a late night item on BBC One. We never made an appointment to watch it but often stayed in our seats as it followed a repeat series of Shoestring on Wednesday nights.
The BBC was actually a partner in the production of the series which was partly written by its presenter Carl Sagan . It was first screened in the USA where it was wildly popular with both critics and public and won numerous awards. An astronomy professor from Cornell University in his mid-forties, Sagan was a likable and telegenic host with a full repertoire of unusual intonations which, had the series been shown in prime time, would have made him an absolute gift to impressionists It was though a little unfortunate as the content was so cerebral you really didn't want to be distracted by the eccentricities in the delivery. Vangelis provided much of the music.
The series ran for 13 episodes which had been slightly trimmed to fit a 50 minute time slot.
It hasn't been repeated here since 1982. In the US it was regularly re-shown and Sagan would add new bits in the light of recent discoveries until his death from pneumonia nearly twenty years ago.
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I'm not sure how late this went out, but when I started visiting America, the concept that our TV used to cut out before midnight seemed so quaint to them, being brought up on stuff like "The Late Show".
ReplyDeleteOf course, their bars opened a lot later than ours too, as a certain show set in Boston proved...
It went out at 10.15 pm on a Wednesday.
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