Perhaps one of the best things for a wandering race stuck at home is an opportunity to look outward -- to thought-travel into the boundless universe and dream of possibilities so grand and sweeping that they boomerang back from the far reaches of time and space to shower our poor struggling planet with hope.
That's the experience Cosmos: Possible Worlds offers, and though there was no pandemic to contend with when it was conceived, it seems that's what it was born to do.
Cosmos: Possible Worlds is the third installment in a series that began 40 years ago with Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, presented by the late Carl Sagan, a beloved scientist who had a long list of impressive credentials and a singular gift for explaining the world in a way ordinary people could grasp. Sagan's wife Ann Druyan collaborated with him on that first groundbreaking television event.
After Sagan's death in 1996, Druyan worked tirelessly to cultivate interest in developing a follow-up version of the series, but it wasn't until nearly three and a half decades had elapsed that "season two" finally aired. Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, presented by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, was a critical and popular success, winning numerous awards.
Druyan and others close to the project -- including Tyson and executive producers Seth MacFarlane and Brannon Braga -- soon dove into plans for a third season, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, which premiered last month in the United States. The 13th and final episode airs Monday on National Geographic. Fox will broadcast the series later this year. It's ultimately expected to reach 172 other countries.
Cosmos: Possible Worlds takes users on a breathtaking adventure, down rabbit holes to glimpse fragments of our past, and across the vastness of space to sample the tantalizing prospects of other worlds. State-of-the-art VFX, combined with stylized animations, dramatic reenactments, and a soaring musical score make the show exhilarating, moving, thoughtful and compelling.


The script, written by Druyan and Braga, somehow strikes the fine balance between entertainment and instruction. Anchored by hard facts, it is liberated by imagination. Possibilities that fit a rigorously truthful framework can be much more astounding than the edgiest fiction or fantasy.