The most beloved, wonder-filled science franchise in television history returns with a new, 13-episode, mind-blowing adventure when Cosmos: Possible Worlds premieres March 10, 2020 (same day as the U.S.) on National Geographic in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia and on video-streaming service, FOX+.
This out-of-this-world trip through space and time will transport viewers across 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution and deep into the future.
The next chapter of Cosmos, announced in celebration of what would have been visionary Carl Sagan’s 85th birthday on Nov. 9, continues the legacy of the ground-breaking series co-written with Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, which was broadcast to a global audience 40 years ago.
Cosmos: Possible Worlds airs on National Geographic in 172 countries and 43 languages. The previous season was seen by over 135 million people worldwide.
This Emmy-winning, worldwide phenomenon is the brainchild of Emmy and Peabody Award winner Ann Druyan, creative director of NASA’s legendary Voyager Interstellar Message, who serves as creator, executive producer, writer and director, and Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated executive producers Seth MacFarlane (The Orville, Family Guy), Brannon Braga (The Orville, Star Trek) and Jason Clark (The Orville, The Long Road Home).
Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History, host of the four-time Emmy-nominated StarTalk series and best-selling author (Death by Black Hole, Letters from an Astrophysicist), returns as host and series executive science editor.
This season begins with him on the shores of the cosmic ocean as Cosmos’ enhanced and upgraded ‘Ship of the Imagination’ and ‘Cosmic Calendar’ return, taking viewers on a journey through time and spanning a stunning variety of worlds. Throughout these adventurous episodes, Cosmos: Possible Worlds integrates one-of-a-kind VFX, animations, holograms and stylized reenactments to carry viewers to never-before-seen worlds and meet unsung superheroes who have made possible our understanding of life’s spectacular voyage —from its origin at the bottom of the sea to its possible future on the exotic worlds of distant stars.
“This third season of Cosmos: Possible Worlds is our boldest yet,” says Druyan. “The ‘Ship of the Imagination’ will carry us places we never dared to venture before: lost worlds and worlds to come, deep into the future and straight through that hole in the curtain masking other realities – and all of it rigorously informed by science and made real by lavish VFX.”
“National Geographic is proud to be the world’s leading destination for viewers who are passionate about science and exploration,” says Courteney Monroe, president of global television networks at National Geographic. “Which is why we’re excited for the next chapter of the most-beloved and most-watched science show to date, Cosmos, to return to our air. Cosmos: Possible Worlds takes complex themes from astrophysics, astronomy and anthropology and makes them accessible and entertaining for millions of people around the world to devour.”
Cosmos: Possible Worlds ventures to previously uncharted territories: starting back to the dawning of our universe, moving forward to the futuristic 2039 New York World’s Fair and then far beyond into the distant future on other worlds. Visit an open house in the first apartment ever built and climb a 10,000-year-old stairway to the stars. Return to the foreboding ‘Halls of Extinction,’ with living dioramas of the broken branches on the tree of life, and venture to the new, glorious ‘Palace of Life,’ with its soaring towers filled with vibrant marine creatures. Stand beneath its ‘Arch of Experience’ to know what it’s like to soar with the eagles or swim with the whales on their epic voyages.
Associated with the series are some of television and film’s most revered creatives across all crafts, including Emmy-nominated cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub (Independence Day, Stargate); Academy Award-winning and Emmy-nominated costume designer Ruth E. Carter (Black Panther, Roots); Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated composer Alan Silvestri (The Avengers,Forrest Gump, Contact); visual effects supervisor Jeffrey A. Okun (Clash of the Titans, Blood Diamond); and supervising animation directors Lucas Gray (The Simpsons, Family Guy), Emmy-nominated Brent Woods (American Dad!, Family Guy) and Academy Award-nominated Duke Johnson (Anomalisa, Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole).
Many celebrities compose the noteworthy corps of actors who lend their voices to Cosmos: Possible Worlds. This season includes Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning actor Seth MacFarlane (The Orville, Family Guy) as President Truman; Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated actor Sir Patrick Stewart (Star Trek, X-Men) as German, British-born astronomer William Herschel; Academy Award-nominated Viggo Mortensen (The Green Book, The Lord of the Rings) as Soviet plant geneticist Nikolai Vavilov; and Judd Hirsch (A Beautiful Mind, Independence Day) as Robert Oppenheimer, famously known as the “Father of the Atomic Bomb.” Druyan and Sagan’s daughter, author Sasha Sagan, appears in a recurring live-action role as Sagan’s mother, Rachel Gruber Sagan.
In conjunction with the launch of the new season, National Geographic Books is publishing a companion book, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, by Druyan, the long-awaited follow-up to Sagan’s international bestseller, Cosmos.
Cosmos: Possible Worlds is produced for National Geographic and FOX by Cosmos Studios, the company Ann Druyan co-founded in 2000, and Seth MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door. Druyan and Brannon Braga are the series’ writers and directors. Druyan, MacFarlane, Braga and Jason Clark executive produce. Kara Vallow (Family Guy, American Dad!) co-executive produces, and Joseph Micucci (Patriots Day, Ted 2) produces. For National Geographic, Kevin Mohs is executive producer and Geoff Daniels is EVP of global unscripted entertainment.