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(from National Geographic Channel's press release, January 2020) Many decades ago, a young Carl Sagan daydreamed on the rug of a tenement, envisioning something quite unique for someone so young: a drawing filled with a boy's dreams of the Space Age and interstellar exploration. A world-renowned visionary, Sagan lived those dreams and shared them with the world in COSMOS: A Personal Voyage, sparking the most beloved science franchise in television history. Now, 40 years after it was introduced to a global audience, this epic voyage reaches new heights of adventure with the highly anticipated third season, COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS. Beginning Monday, March 9, at 8/7 c on National Geographic, COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS, helmed by Sagan's collaborator, Ann Druyan, boldly carries the torch forward, making this season the most ambitious yet. In its endless quest for knowledge, the newest season of COSMOS delivers its signature, fact-based storytelling, painlessly conveying complex scientific concepts to the viewer. These thought-provoking adventures celebrate the possibilities of humanity in our universe. The season features time travel to past eras, revealing unsung scientific heroes who sacrificed everything in the pursuit of scientific revelation. It transports the viewer to a hidden place where life may have begun on Earth, to some of the lost worlds of our ancestors and to the possible worlds of our remote descendants. Druyan was awarded the Emmy and Peabody, for her writing and producing of Season 2, COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY, which she led with Brannon Braga ("The Orville," "Star Trek"). Druyan and Braga teamed up again for COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS, sharing the writing and directing duties, and are rejoined by their Season 2 executive producing partners, Seth MacFarlane ("The Orville," "Family Guy"), Jason Clark ("The Orville," "The Long Road Home"), co-executive producer Kara Vallow ("Family Guy," "American Dad!) and Joe Micucci, who produced. World-renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson of the American Museum of Natural History, host of the four-time Emmy-nominated "StarTalk" series and bestselling author (Death by Black Hole, Letters From an Astrophysicist), reprises his role as host and executive science editor. "COSMOS is much more than a dramatic, cinematic journey; we hope that it will awaken the widest possible global audience to the sacred searching at the heart of science. You will meet new heroes who were willing to give up their lives rather than tell a lie or jeopardize the future," Druyan explains. "COSMOS: POSSIBILE WORLDS is a vision of the future we can still have if we have the wisdom and the will to act on what the scientists are telling us." "COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS continues the eternal search for answers about ourselves in the universe," Tyson says. "The series explores the interwoven tapestry that is life on Earth and calls on us to remember this truth as we collectively build the future of civilization." "The importance of our species' continued investment in the enterprise of science cannot be overstated. As we strive toward a deeper understanding of the universe around us, I am honored to play a small role in the elevation of that passion, as a part of the COSMOS producing team," says executive producer MacFarlane, who also voices President Truman in the series. This season is the popular franchise's most aspiring, having filmed 13 episodes across 19 locations in 11 countries and incorporating more than a thousand talented individuals across all crafts, including voice actors, to transport viewers to distant stars and unknown frontiers. The creative corps of craftspeople include Emmy-nominated cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub ("Independence Day," "Stargate"); Academy Award-winning and Emmy-nominated costume designer Ruth E. Carter ("Black Panther," "Roots"); Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated composer Alan Silvestri ("The Avengers," "Forrest Gump," "Contact"); VFX supervisor Jeff Okun ("Clash of the Titans," "Blood Diamond"); and supervising animation directors Lucas Gray ("The Simpsons," "Family Guy"), Emmy-nominated Brent Woods ("American Dad!," "Family Guy") and Academy Award-nominated Duke Johnson ("Anomalisa," "Mary Shelley's Frankenhole"). Among the many actors whose voices are heard throughout the season are Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated actor Sir Patrick Stewart ("Star Trek," "X-Men") as German-born, British astronomer William Herschel; Academy Award-nominated Viggo Mortensen ("The Green Book," "The Lord of the Rings") as Soviet plant geneticist Nikolai Vavilov; and Judd Hirsch ("A Beautiful Mind," "Independence Day") as Robert Oppenheimer, famously known as the "Father of the Atomic Bomb." Sasha Sagan, Druyan and Sagan's daughter, appears in a recurring live-action role as Sagan's mother, Rachel Gruber Sagan. COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS airs from 8-10 PM ET for seven weeks beginning March 9, in the US, and it will air globally in 171 countries and 43 languages and on FOX this summer. The previous season was seen by more than 135 million people worldwide. |
