We see the Orion Nebula, the Hercules Cluster, Andromeda, the planets of our solar system large and small, and then set a course into “ the shallows of the solar system,” where we finally reach blue, clouded Earth. We visit quasars, pulsars, a supernova, a stellar nursery, various galaxies (“ chains of islands in the cosmic ocean“) and more. Next, we travel alongside our host for a close-to-thirty-minute voyage through the universe. But he also notes appreciatively that, as a species, we are “ young, curious and brave.” What will follow this introduction, he states, is nothing less than the story of us, of humanity, floating “ like of mote of dust in a morning sky.”Īfter reminding us that for this TV journey we will require “ imagination and skepticism both,” we then board “ a ship of the imagination,” a glowing star craft that resembles a dandelion seed. He speaks explicitly of the danger of the Cold War and our new found technological capacity to destroy ourselves.

Meet Carl Sagan, our host, teacher, and philosopher-in-residence.

As this figure nears us, this very intense-looking man garbed in a red turtleneck and corduroy jacket begins to speak in forthright, blunt terms about the human race and our place in the universe. “The Shore of the Cosmic Ocean” opens with a view of tumbling, crashing waves, and then a long-shot view of a solitary man on a mountaintop. I recently re-screened the first episode of the award-winning Cosmos, “The Shore of the Cosmic Ocean,” and it was amazing and gratifying to me how many ideas, how many visuals, how many specific moments I recalled with clarity, nearly thirty years later. Rice, had assigned me to “review” the premiere episode, “The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean.” It was my first written TV/film review of many, I suspect…the inauguration of my own “ personal journey,” as series host Carl Sagan (1934-1996) might have aptly described it. I was in the fifth grade at the time - just ten years old - and my English teacher, Mr. I still remember feeling a keen sense of anticipation as I sat down to watch the first hour-long episode of the PBS series, Cosmos: A Personal Journey (September – December 1980). “The cosmos is all there is, or was, or ever will be…”

The shores of the cosmic ocean