Born June 13, 1949, Ann Druyan has led a life. She was one of the co-writers on the original PBS Series Cosmos and married to the late great Carl Sagan whom she married in 1981. Thanks to Seth McFarland her dream of reviving the revered series has become a reality.
What was the genesis for the revival of Cosmos?
AD – Turn back the calendar 35 years, Carl Sagan, Steven Soter and I wrote the original series together and people have been yearning for us to bring it back. A few years ago we started the process of reviving it, but it wasn’t going anywhere until Seth McFarland got involved. He kept ever
Cosmos was such a beloved show, did you feel pressure when you brought back?
AD – I did feel enormous pressure since the show is so beloved. When people started to see the first few episodes and the response was so positive, I started feel elated. It is the show that I dreamt it would become. People have been telling that it is the first show that they could watch with their kids and parents. When I first started the project, I was really distressed about the outright hostility towards science. It is my hope that Cosmos will awaken people to the possibilities of science.
Cosmos is a huge scientific brand, when you think Cosmos, you think well researched and accurate. How do you respond to the inevitable backlash from people who will try and nitpick your stories?
AD – I haven’t encountered it yet. There was one person who complained about our piece on Giordano Bruno but my writing partner Steven Soter, who is an Astronomer and Scholar, refuted that person point by point. Every human enterprise by definition is flawed, but we try and maintain the highest standards for science and historical accuracy. We use a blue ribbon panel of scientists in the relevant fields to vet every script. I fully admit that everyone is fallible and mistakes may creep in.
How do you determine which topics to cover?
AD – Steve and I spent 11 months combing through the ideas and stories that we wanted to tell, there is no bigger subject. It had to work on three different levels; it had to be compelling, relevant, demystify the science. Everyone who watched the original Cosmos would walk away being a scientifically literate citizen. We’re hoping to accomplish something similar with this new version. It was my goal that this show will help remedy some of the issues that are currently in our education system.
Were there any stories that you wanted to tell, that you couldn’t?
AD – There weren’t any stories that we couldn’t tell because someone was stopping us. This was a great experience in that I had the freedom to do what I wanted. Are there more stories that I want to tell? Absolutely. In any creative process you always have to make choices. We only had 13 hours, but I think we told the ones that were most urgent.
Are you going to keep the show grounded in a particular type of science or will you ever branch out into things like “the real science behind science fiction movies?”
AD – We do that. One of my favorite episodes is 11 and called The Immortals. It is a meditation on Immortality and envisions what an Extraterrestrial society that conquered death would be like.