Tyson also sees multiple meanings in the title, Cosmos: Possible Worlds. “I even well up every now and then when I just re-recite the title because it is so filled with hope,” he admits. “The concept of possible worlds need not be interpreted only literally. In the thirteen episodes you will encounter exoplanets… but there are also worlds within our own solar system, not only planets but moons of other planets, and there are worlds within our own world… So a cosmic perspective, which is one of the DNA strands of Cosmos, is to learn enough about what else is going on out there to know how you fit into that big picture.”
As for specific examples of some of the topics that will appear on Cosmos: Possible Worlds, both Druyan and Tyson were happy to share. “We bring to life a lost city, Mohenjo-daro in what is now Pakistan,” says Druyan. “Many thousands of years ago before the Greeks were doing all the cool things that they did, there was a great city of a million people which we understand virtually nothing about. And yet in Cosmos we let it live again on one of its best days with a large population and buildings for as far as the eye can see and walk those streets.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly for an astrophysicist, Tyson focused on the outer space aspects of Cosmos as he told us about some of the locations to which his hosting of the show took him. “One of my favorite trips was to the world’s largest telescope, and this is in China,” he recalls. “[It’s] a mile in circumference, and we used it to not only show the heights to which technology has reached and that this telescope would be ideal in the search for intelligence in the universe; we used it as a launching point to tell parts of a story about creatures on Earth that communicate. It’s an alien intelligence story that doesn’t have to leave Earth to be told.”
Both Druyan and Tyson seem to be genuinely fascinated by the process Cosmos: Possible Worlds uses to present science concepts through visual effects, which have progressed significantly in the six year gap since season 2. “We have an even bigger palette of ways to tell our story than ever before,” says Druyan. “There are shots in the new season that I’ve imagined in my head for decades, but to actually see the sun become a red giant and strip away the exquisite atmosphere of Jupiter to see the kind of dowdy stone part within — it’s so dramatic to see Jupiter itself, firstborn child of the sun, plowing out its lane in the accreting solar system.”
Tyson appreciates what Druyan and the other writers are able to do to help him communicate these stories eloquently, but he also knows the hidden power of a charismatic narrator, a quality he and Sagan share. “These are folks that write words that become stories on a screen,” he says of Druyan and her fellow executive producer and writer, Brannon Braga. “What I bring to it is my comfort level communicating science to a public. And the hope is that when you hear me, you feel comfortable. It’s like we’re in the living room together and there’s a fire burning in the hearth, and we’re just talking about the universe. It’s your comfort level that I’m after in my delivery, in my tone, in my timbre, in my manner.”