Cosmos: Possible Worlds Co-Creator Laments US Government Response To COVID-19 Pandemic, Hopes Her Show Will Restore Faith In The Power Of Science

ANN DRUYAN: Between the time A Spacetime Odyssey was completed and the time I went to work on the new season, there seemed to be a kind of gathering darkness that made writing both the book and the series that much more urgent. I think all of us already know the dangers [of climate change] that we face; just imagine how awful the world would be if our environment is destroyed.

But nowhere in popular culture could I find a great dream of the future because one of the lessons from working on this series for 40 years is studying the heroism of our ancestors — their courage, their genius, their strength. At this moment of very low human self-esteem, I thought it was really important not only to tell the story of the unsung heroes [of science] but also of the early civilisations where the people were from and how we inherited from them.

[Another] difference is that I had even more special effects at my disposal. I could really just dream something and in consultation with [co-writer] Brannon Braga and [visual effectors supervisor] Jeff Okun, we could actually see those things, which was the thrill of Cosmos: to be able go anywhere and then also to create a new future that’s worth working hard for, worth studying the complex subjects of science, mathematics and engineering for.

What I love about Cosmos is the way science is presented in an accessible way, without diluting or dumbing it down. It's simple, not simplified; complex, not complicated. Was that a writing challenge for you?

I use myself as the meter. If I am bored, then we are not going to tell that story. If I don’t understand it, if I have difficulty writing it, because I can’t understand it, then it’s not working and we have to go back to the drawing board. Cosmos is totally scripted; there’s no ad-libbing. [Host] Neil [deGrasse Tyson] delivers our lines with a beautiful, natural fluidity. And because he’s a scientist, he really understands what the script is telling the audience. He’s really done a greater job this season — he’s more relaxed, even more natural in saying the words. We never dumb anything down. I may not be a scientist but I have a lot of self-respect and respect for my audience. I know the audience will understand it and in some cases, the audience will understand in many different levels.

I was trying to figure that out last night. I was watching episodes 3 and 4 with my stepson Nick. What’s my favourite episode? I am crazy about everything. I know that sounds ridiculous. I was thinking, If you like 3 and 4, you’ll love 5 and 6, 7 and 8… I couldn’t stop. I feel that every single hour is just packed with a-ha moments. Visually, there’s just so many beautiful things to look at.

I’m crazy about Episode 7, ‘The Search for Intelligent Life on Earth’. It’s a subject I’ve never written about before and I learnt so much from the writing of it. I also feel dramatically and visually and spiritually, if I maybe so bold, powerful in some ways. I can think of moments in each episode I would never want the audience to miss.

What about episodes 3 and 4? They deal with persecuted scientists…

Episodes 3 and 4 [‘Lost City of Life’ about Norwegian mineralogist Victor Goldschmid, and ‘Vavilov’ about Russian geneticist Nikolai Vavilov — I have worked on for years. In the United States, there’s been a contempt for science on the part of our current leadership that has been really corrosive. The firing of scientists of the pandemic response team as if they don’t matter. [They’re being treated like] the weathermen by someone who knows nothing about meteorology — because of his vanity, his complete abandonment of science in the service of the ego needs of one person. It’s so insane.

I really believe that the last few weeks has ruined us — the economic costs, the cost of lives. We in the United States — the government is not admitting this — don’t have enough respirators and masks. It’ a criminal misuse of our resources. We have the wealth for all these things. But where has all the wealth gone to? It’s been squandered on unnecessary things, [when we should be spending it on things like] building up our infrastructure and protecting our citizens. It’s a scandal of epic proportions.

My dream for Cosmos is that people will once again feel that sense of respect for the power of the scientific method. To me, studying science is a survival mechanism for our species. It’s part of our adaptation as an organism and that means trying to see nature as clearly as we can.

Sasha is a distinguished author with a book [For Small Creatures Such As We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Likely World] that came just out in fall. A beautiful young woman and you know, I’m crazy about her, but it wasn’t nepotism. There was something else. Sasha was born after Carl’s mother, Rachel, had died and she never knew her grandmother. Carl and I lived with his parents for a couple of years till their deaths. What was shocking was when Sasha was three years old, she suddenly let out this laugh and Carl and I would look at each other — it was a laugh we haven’t heard since Rachel’s death.

Clearly, we learnt from that moment on that parts of our personality are by nature rather than nurture. I was very fond of Rachel; I loved her. I knew Carl would not become the remarkable unique person he was without her as a force in his life. So I wanted to bring Rachel back to life. Sasha really resembles her grandmother. So it was a natural casting move. I just called her up: “Would you be willing to play Rachel on Cosmos?” You’ll see her in several episodes.

I’m a big fan of Contact, the Robert Zemeckis movie based on Carl Sagan's novel. What are your memories of making that movie?

They are beautiful but bittersweet. Carl and I wrote the 110-page treatment for Contact while we were editing the first Cosmos. And then we worked with a movie producer, a friend, Lynda Obst, to make it into a movie. It actually took 17 years to get it to the screen. In that intervening time, Carl wrote, with some assistance from me, the novel Contact, which was published in 1985. The movie didn’t come out until 1997.

The movie didn’t start shooting until when Carl was already ill with myelodysplasia, which took his life after three bone marrow transplants. Carl really went through a tremendous amount of suffering yet he remained positive to the very end. The movie was still shooting when Carl died. But Carl and I were able to be on the set very briefly for the scene shot in Washington DC, and a month later he was gone.

For me, the writing of the treatment together and the writing of the novel are the memories I treasured the most because we were creating something together. We have a family. We were together day and night. Writing Contact and the other books from that time was a tremendous experience. Late at night, when one of us had an idea, we would wake up the other, “What do you think about this?” The joy of having that kind of relationship with someone which is so completely nourishing and all thrilling.

I have met so many scientists who tell me that they became scientists because they saw Contact when they were little. There was a Caltech astrophysicist from Tunisia who saw Contact when she was eight years old. She suddenly realised that she could be the hero of her own life. She is one of many people, mostly women, who suddenly had a role model in Eleanor Arroway — she became their map to their dreams, just as the new season and the new book of Cosmos are another collection of maps to a new future for each of us.

Cosmos: Possible Worlds airs Tue, National Geographic Channel (Singtel TV Ch 201 & StarHub TV Ch 411), 8am & 9pm (same day encore), same day as the Us. It’s also streaming on Fox+.

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