The BEST episodes written by Ann Druyan
#1 - The Edge of Forever
Cosmos - Season 1 - Episode 10
Dr. Sagan leads us on some awesome trips — to a time when galaxies were beginning to form, to India to explore the infinite cycles of Hindu cosmology, and to show how humans of this century discovered the expanding universe and its origin in the big bang. He disappears down a black hole and reappears in New Mexico to show us an array of 17 telescopes probing the farthest reaches of space.
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#2 - Who Speaks for Earth?
Cosmos - Season 1 - Episode 13
Through the use of special effects we retrace the 15-billion-year journey from the big bang to the present. We also hear the tragic story of the martyrdom of Hypatia, the woman scientist of ancient Alexandria. This is the famous episode on nuclear war in which Dr. Sagan argues that our responsibility for survival is owed not just to ourselves, but also to the cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.
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#3 - The Persistence of Memory
Cosmos - Season 1 - Episode 11
The brain is the focus of this fascinating portion of our journey as Dr. Sagan examines another of the intelligent creatures with whom we share the planet Earth — whales. Then we wind through the maze of the human brain to witness the architecture of thought. We see how genes, brains and books store the information necessary for human survival.
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#4 - Unafraid of the Dark
Cosmos (2014) - Season 1 - Episode 13
The Ship of the Imagination makes a final journey to explore one of the biggest mysteries of the universe: dark energy. Meet one of science's greatest unsung heroes, Fritz Zwicky, whose prediction of supernovas paved the way for our larger understanding of dark energy, the unknown force in the universe that overwhelms gravity on the grandest scale. On our final voyage, discover the romantic message embedded in Voyager's Interstellar Golden Record and contemplate the spiritual experience of life on Earth as our cosmic journey concludes with Carl Sagan's unforgettable meditation, The Pale Blue Dot.
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#5 - Journeys in Space and Time
Cosmos - Season 1 - Episode 8
A voyage to see how star patterns change over millions of years is followed by a journey to the planets of other stars, and a look at the possibility of time travel. This takes us to Italy, where a young Albert Einstein first wondered what it would be like to ride on a beam of light.
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#6 - Harmony of the Worlds
Cosmos - Season 1 - Episode 3
This episode is a historical re-creation of the life of Johannes Kepler, the last scientific astrologer, the first modern astronomer and the author of the first science fiction novel. Kepler provided the insight into how the moon and the planets move in their orbits and ultimately how to journey to them. It's also a story about the scientific process of discovery, and how the search for truth is never easy but always worthwhile.
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#7 - The Electric Boy
Cosmos (2014) - Season 1 - Episode 10
Travel to 19th century England and meet Michael Faraday, a child of poverty who grew up to invent the motor and the generator. His ideas about electricity and discovery of magnetic fields changed the world and paved the way for future scientists to make giant strides in the world of high technology and instantaneous communication
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#8 - The Lives of the Stars
Cosmos - Season 1 - Episode 9
Using computer animation and amazing astronomical art, Dr. Sagan shows how stars are born, live, die and sometimes collapse to form neutron stars or black holes. We then journey into the future to witness "the last perfect day on Earth," 5 billion years from now, after which the sun will engulf our planet in the fires of its death throes.
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#9 - One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue
Cosmos - Season 1 - Episode 2
Dr. Sagan's cosmic calendar makes the history of the universe understandable and frames the origin of the Earth and the evolution of life. We see the evolutionary process unfold, from microbes to humans. Our understanding of how life developed on Earth enables us to venture to other worlds for imaginative speculations on what forms life might take elsewhere.
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#10 - The Backbone of Night
Cosmos - Season 1 - Episode 7
Humans once thought the stars were campfires in the sky and the Milky Way "the backbone of night." In this fascinating segment Dr. Sagan takes us back to ancient Greece, when the basic question "what are the stars?" was first asked. He visits the Brooklyn elementary school of his childhood, where this same question is still on students' minds.
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#11 - Standing Up in the Milky Way
Cosmos (2014) - Season 1 - Episode 1
The Ship of the Imagination, unfettered by ordinary limits on speed and size, drawn by the music of cosmic harmonies, can take us anywhere in space and time. It has been idling for more than three decades, and yet it has never been overtaken. Its global legacy remains vibrant. Now, it's time once again to set sail for the stars.
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#12 - Hiding in the Light
Cosmos (2014) - Season 1 - Episode 5
The Ship of the Imagination travels back in time to reveal 11th century Europe and North Africa during the golden age of Islam, when brilliant physicist Ibn al-Haytham discovered the scientific method and first understood how we see, and how light travels. Later, William Herschel discovers the infrared and the signature hidden in the light of every star, eventually unlocking one of the keys to the cosmos.
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#13 - Travellers' Tales
Cosmos - Season 1 - Episode 6
Dr. Sagan compares the exhilaration of 17th-century Dutch explorers who ventured in sailing ships halfway around our planet in their quest for wealth and knowledge to an inside view of the excitement around Voyager's expeditions to Jupiter and Saturn. The newly acquired treasures of our present golden age of exploration are the focus of this episode.
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#14 - Heaven and Hell
Cosmos - Season 1 - Episode 4
A descent through the hellish atmosphere of Venus to explore its broiling surface serves as a warning to our world about the possible consequences of the increasing greenhouse effect. Then Dr. Sagan leads us on a tour of our solar system to see how other heavenly bodies have suffered from various cosmic catastrophes.
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#15 - The World Set Free
Cosmos (2014) - Season 1 - Episode 12
The Ship of the Imagination travels to our near neighbor Venus, where we begin our journey to discover the long history of global warming and the greenhouse effect. Later, explore the detrimental effects of climate change and trace the magnitude of our impact on the Earth’s atmosphere. However, with knowledge, technology and science within our grasp, imagine a hopeful future where we dedicate our efforts to taking care of our home, Planet Earth.
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#16 - A Sky Full of Ghosts
Cosmos (2014) - Season 1 - Episode 4
An exploration of how light, time and gravity combine to distort our perceptions of the universe. We eavesdrop on a series of walks along a beach on summer nights in the year 1809. William Herschel, whose many discoveries include the insight that telescopes are time machines, tells bedtime stories to his young son, John, who will grow up to make some rather profound discoveries of his own.
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#17 - When Knowledge Conquered Fear
Cosmos (2014) - Season 1 - Episode 3
There was a time, not so long ago, when natural events could only be understood as gestures of divine displeasure. We will witness the moment that all changed, but first--The Ship of the Imagination is in the brooding, frigid realm of the Oort Cloud, where a trillion comets wait. Our Ship takes us on a hair-raising ride, chasing a single comet through its million-year plunge towards the Sun.
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#18 - The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean
Cosmos - Season 1 - Episode 1
At the beginning of this cosmic journey across space and time, Dr. Carl Sagan takes us to the edge of the universe aboard a spaceship of the imagination. Through beautiful special effects, we witness quasars, exploding galaxies, star clusters, supernovas and pulsars. Returning to our solar system, we enter a re-creation of the Alexandrian Library, the seat of learning on Earth 2,000 years ago.
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#19 - Sisters of the Sun
Cosmos (2014) - Season 1 - Episode 8
Discover the remarkable story of Annie Jump Cannon and Cecilia Payne, two incredible women who challenged conventional wisdom and uncovered the real-life story of the stars. Cannon led a group of astronomers in the early 20th century to catalogue the spectral characters of stars, and two decades later Payne joined forces with Cannon to analyze the data and uncover the chemical compositions of the stars. Later, travel on the Ship of the Imagination to explore the lives and deaths of stars and visit the planet of a star orbiting a globular cluster.
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#20 - The Immortals
Cosmos (2014) - Season 1 - Episode 11
The Ship of the Imagination travels across the cosmos to discover the possibility of beings that live forever and explain why other civilizations perish. Then, visit the Cosmic Calendar of the Future and contemplate what lies ahead with a hopeful vision.
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#21 - Some of the Things that Molecules Do
Cosmos (2014) - Season 1 - Episode 2
Host Neil deGrasse Tyson is on a voyage to explore the relatedness of all livings things and the possible evolution of life in the cosmos. Go on a journey to discover how artificial selection turned the wolf into canine breeds and how natural selection sculpted the complex human eye. Later, Tyson visits the grand Hall of Extinction, a monument to all the broken branches on the tree of life. Retrace the story of life on Earth and the unbroken thread that stretches from the first one-celled organisms to human life.
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#22 - The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth
Cosmos (2014) - Season 1 - Episode 9
The Ship of the Imagination embarks on a journey through space and time to grasp how the autobiography of the Earth is written in its atoms, its oceans, its continents and all living things. Later, American geologist Marie Tharp creates the first true map of Earth’s ocean floor, and discovers microscopic life that exists deep beneath the ocean
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#23 - Encyclopaedia Galactica
Cosmos - Season 1 - Episode 12
Are there alien intelligences? How could we communicate with them? What about UFOs? The answers to these questions take us to Egypt to decode ancient hieroglyphics, to the largest radio telescope on Earth and, in the Spaceship of the Imagination, to visit other civilizations in space. Dr. Sagan answers questions such as: "What is the life span of a planetary civilization?" and "Will we one day hook up with a network of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy?"
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#24 - The Clean Room
Cosmos (2014) - Season 1 - Episode 7
To determine the true age of the Earth, geochemist Clair Patterson developed the uranium-lead dating method to make an unprecedented discovery—calculating Earth's age of 4.5 billion years. But Patterson's groundbreaking discoveries were just beginning. Patterson made it his mission to draw public attention to the detrimental effects of lead in the environment and dedicated his career to fighting against the petroleum and chemical industry, eventually achieving public health's biggest victory of the 20th century.
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#25 - Deeper, Deeper, Deeper Still
Cosmos (2014) - Season 1 - Episode 6
The Ship of the Imagination ventures on an epic voyage to the bottom of a dewdrop to explore the universe on the smallest scale and observe exotic life forms invisible to the naked eye. Then, host Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the neural network in our brains which determine our sense of smell and memory, and later, he travels deep beneath the surface of the Earth to discover the most mysterious particle we know.
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#26 - Magic Without Lies
Cosmos (2014) - Season 2 - Episode 9
Meet the man who stumbled on a hole in the reality of quantum mechanics and the still-unfolding technology that made it possible.
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#27 - Blues for a Red Planet
Cosmos - Season 1 - Episode 5
Is there life on Mars? Dr. Sagan takes viewers on a tour of the red planet first through the eyes of science fiction authors, and then through the unblinking eyes of two Viking spacecrafts that have sent thousands of pictures of the stunning Martian landscape back to Earth since 1976. Though based on older Mars missions, Sagan's analysis still holds true.
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#28 - The Sacrifice of Cassini
Cosmos (2014) - Season 2 - Episode 8
The mysterious untold story of the scientist who figured out how to go the Moon while fighting for his life in a WWI trench. He wrote a letter to fifty years in the future. It made the Apollo Mission possible. And the saga of the twenty-year long odyssey of a robotic explorer ordered to commit suicide on another world.
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#29 - Vavilov
Cosmos (2014) - Season 2 - Episode 4
In the first half of the 20th century pioneering geneticist Nikolai Vavilov traveled 5 continents assembling a treasury of the worlds seeds. He dreamed that science could be the means to end hunger. His refusal to tell a scientific lie cost him his life. The heroism of his colleagues and its direct impact on your life is one of the most stirring stories in the history of science.
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#30 - The Fleeting Grace of the Habitable Zone
Cosmos (2014) - Season 2 - Episode 2
There is no refuge from change in the cosmos. There will come a time in the life of the Sun when Earth will no longer be a home for us. The story of our ancestors who rose to a comparable challenge and a long-term vision of our future on other worlds.
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#31 - Lost City of Life
Cosmos (2014) - Season 2 - Episode 3
A new vision of genesis at the bottom of the blood red sea of the infant Earth. And the story of the man who found the first clues to life's beginning in a green jewel. As he searched for life's origin, he risked his own, daring to toy with his Nazi tormentors.
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#32 - Ladder to the Stars
Cosmos (2014) - Season 2 - Episode 1
An adventure spanning billions of years into the evolution of life and consciousness. A visit to a 100,000-year-old laboratory. The story of the change in life-style that radically altered human existence and the life of the heretic who found god in the book of nature, opening our way to the stars.
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#33 - A Tale of Two Atoms
Cosmos (2014) - Season 2 - Episode 10
How a deadly embrace between science and state altered the fate of the world, and a gripping cautionary tale of mass casualty and unlikely survival.
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#34 - The Search for Intelligent Life on Earth
Cosmos (2014) - Season 2 - Episode 7
A revelation of the hidden underground network that is a collaboration of four kingdoms of life, and a true first contact story between humans and beings who communicate in a symbolic language and have maintained a representative democracy for many tens of millions of years.
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#35 - Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Cosmos (2014) - Season 2 - Episode 11
An exploration of human potential for change, concluding with the story of one of history's greatest monster and his virtuous transformation.
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#36 - The Man of a Trillion Worlds
Cosmos (2014) - Season 2 - Episode 6
A child lies on the rug of a tenement dreaming of interstellar adventures. At the dawn of the space age, a young Carl Sagan's career is forged in the clash of his mentors, two scientific titans. Sagan goes on realize his childhood dreams, to carry their research forward and communicate its significance to the whole world.
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#37 - Coming of Age In The Anthropocene
Cosmos (2014) - Season 2 - Episode 12
A baby is born on the day the show premieres. What kind of world can she expect to grow up in? One of her possible futures is explored.
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#38 - Seven Wonders of The New World
Cosmos (2014) - Season 2 - Episode 13
Take a trip to the 2039 New York World’s Fair, where the problems we now consider hopeless have been solved and thrilling possibilities exist.
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#39 - The Cosmic Connectome
Cosmos (2014) - Season 2 - Episode 5
A voyage of discovery through the evolution of consciousness with stops in ancient Greece, a visit to the largest life form on Earth, into the poignant dream of an abandoned orphan that opened the way to our understanding of the architecture of thought and beyond to a vision of a galactic network of thought.
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