Cosmos Reboot: Running Discussion Thread

It beat Bob's Burgers, American Dad, came in just behind The Simpsons, and came in .5 behind Family Guy. Interestingly enough, when you factor in the delayed viewing on DVRs and HuluPlus, the second episode of Cosmos saw a 57% increase in viewership. There's apparently a sporting event of some kind that Cosmos is up against, and it looks like folks are watching the sporting event live, and then watching Cosmos later on their DVR or HuluPlus, etc.

Oh, and since its most likely that you're getting your "low ratings" info from Drudge, you should know that he likes the cock, and was voted one of "Out" magazine's most powerful gay people last year.

Actually, that's not where I got the data from but nice reach. I don't understand the hostility over looking at both sides of a show's fortunes though. I love science shows on SCI. I just think this one is silly and the #'s say it's going to be cancelled. Don't fear, you'll still be able to get it on Zulu or in the $5.00 bin at Walmart.

You simply have no idea what you're talking about. There's no point in canceling the show since, like the original, its intended only for 13 episodes. As for your claims that the numbers are so bad, I've already shown that its pulling close to those of The Simpsons, which has some of the highest paid voice actors on TV, but is continually picked up for another season. There's no way that an episode of Cosmos is costing Fox as much as a single episode of The Simpsons does. Heck, The Daily Show pulls a .6 share, and Jon Stewart gets paid ~$30 million/yr! I doubt if all 13 episodes for Cosmos set back the producers much more than that, so if .6 is enough to get Jon Stewart $30 million and pay for 200+ episodes of The Daily Show, then Fox can afford to keep Cosmos on until it finishes its run. Besides, with March being dominated by basketball, and the beginning of April and the end of May being a lot of reruns, while Sweeps Week happens from the end of April until the 21st of May, there's no pressing "need" for Fox to cancel Cosmos in an effort to boost their ratings. The ratings they'll be getting for its run simply won't factor into anything, because its the ratings during Sweeps Weeks that determine how much a network can charge.

As a sidebar (non-derp, I might add), there are many, many people who work in the business who'd like nothing better than for the four traditional "sweeps" months to go away and never return, at least in the metered markets.

It's such an outdated system and has been for a very long time.

It would certainly save us from unending repetitions of the same three stories every lazy news director seems to pull out for sweeps:

"We swabbed some doorknobs/elevator buttons/restaurant tables and sent the samples to a lab, and, GASP, we found bacteria!"

"There's a scary new drug craze that's going to kill your kids! It's the same craze we've been screaming about for the last five years, but now it's NEWER and SCARIER!"

And the perennial favorite --

"Oh my God, you guys, there's PORN on the INTERNET!"

I didn't say it wouldn't make the 13 episodes. I believe it will. It just won't go beyond that on network television.

I mean, if I'm an advertiser looking to buy time in September, why would I want to pay rates based on ratings taken in May (even though July is a "ratings period", the rates for the summer and up until November are set in May)? Show me what you did last week or, better yet, last night.

It's silly.

What makes you think that they ever planned to do more than 13 episodes?

The original was 13 episodes and I think this one is supposed to be the same.

Good! Then there's nothing to worry about. See how easy it is to find common ground?

Of course not. There are no plans for that to happen. Now, sure, if it suddenly started annihilating everything in its time slot, then no doubt Fox would be saying, "Hey guys, do you think that you could do some more for us?" but there's no way that's going to happen. No doubt Seth sold this to Fox as a 13 episode deal, and they picked a time period when they all knew that it wouldn't matter what they put in that slot, it'd still garner halfway decent ratings (i.e. not significantly lower than the rerun they were planning on putting in there).

I've heard nothing from any of the people connected with the production that indicates they ever thought about doing more than 13 episodes, so to think that they had planned on such a thing is utterly stupid. The original Cosmos was one of the highest rated programs to air on PBS, but it didn't get a sequel (mainly because Sagan hated the director and refused to work with him again, and apparently if they were going to do a sequel the contract stipulated the original director would have to be a part of the production), and I see no reason to believe that this will get one, either.

They *should* make it a series. I'd watch Fat Lando Calrissian use Science to fight space aliens & The Pope.

The next season can be the creationists' counterpoint.

He is pre-positioning for making the claim that it was cancelled once the 13 episodes are done. He and his fellow travelers will make a big show about Cosmos not being picked up for a second season, and argue that it's because it didn't include "biblical science."

Oh, I know. I even wrote a post about that earlier in the thread.

How is it that people end up being LESS scientifically savvy in the 21st century?
No wonder we don't have flying cars.

If they make a universe right now, we can talk about it in 14 billion years.

faith doesn't fight science. organized religion does, and it does it becase it still fears losing influence. it's the same fear that makes religions uneasy around sex - they can't control it and rhus they condemn it.

there are no two sides. there is one side and superstition, 25.000 BC style.

Faith literally, by definition, fights science. Some people of faith resolve this by rejecting science wholesale and other people of faith compartmentalize, but that doesn't change the fact that every invocation of religious faith is by definition a rejection of science.

Admittedly, we take everything on faith. You have no way of knowing that you're not in a coma, or sleeping, or living in a deluded mental state.

Faith is a sloppy thing to call it.
We really deal in probability factors.

Things with low probability we chalk up as bullshit, things in the 50/50 zone we're on the fence on, and things with high probability are treated self-evident fact.
What breaks the tie is evidence.

Call it whatever you want, the end result is the same.

I can call a moped a Lamborghini, won't make it so.
Even though they both have wheels, and get you from point A to point B.

That's not how I see it. Obviously I'm from a Christian society so I'll have that perspective (albeit being an agnostic myself), but if Christians really, really believed their own two cornerstones of that religion, they'd act differently.

They would, for one, not fear death. Why would a true Christian fear death? Paradise awaits, and Paradise is sure for all those who believe! Nobody, of course, thinks they don't believe enough; the human invention of original sin be damned. It's different from Islam where faith alone doesn't cut it. In Christianity, you don't have to drive your enemies by fire and sword to earn your place in heaven.

The other thing is that a truly infinite God obviously has space for everything. The Christian God has parallels to certain fringe beliefs in extreme physics - and those do. Ad infinitum. In a truly endless universe, there are infinite copies of you, me, and that dinosaur bone. Think about it. It's only logical given that there are only a finite number of ways a given number of particles can be arranged. Lots of ways. But a finite number. So things have to start repeating. When it comes to a whole variety of multiverse theories, you can extend this to whole universes. A finite number will have been born of evolution (like ours). Another finite number will have been born by being sneezed out by the Great Green Arkleseizure. And yet another finite number will have been born from a bearded guy snipping his fingers.

But of course no Christian really, really believes those things. They will look left and right before crossing the street and they still pissed in their rags when Nero released the big cats into the Circus Maximus. And they can't grasp the concept of infinity and its implications. Those being: true faith equals no problem at all with science.

Need an Aspirin?

I don't know if this has been mentioned in the thread yet, but I noticed while watching the opening credits that Brannon Braga is an executive producer! Ugh.

He's also the director.

No wonder there's time travel!

The shades of Voyager in the theme song make me want to punch a homeless person.

The theme was the only thing I remotely liked about Voyager.

Now I can't hear it without wanting to shove a sword in my ears.