Wonders of the Universe

Anyone else watched the first part of Dr Brian Cox's new show?

I did find the places he went to interesting and he is an enthusiastic and compelling guy to watch, but I thought it went on a bit too long and although what he said was interesting I found that I didn't much care. OK so stars will become white dwarves and then black dwarves and disappear..........so what? No-one will be around by then anyway.
And yes it will take a really long time, we get it.

Some of it was good, but the show could be 45 minutes and still get across the points he wants to make.

I do think it is good to have a younger more "hip" type of presenter like Cox doing these shows though. It is people like him who encourage newer ounger viewers into watching science shows on TV. Most of the educational academic programs are still presented by old guys who, as good as they are, I think struggle to connectso well with younger audiences.

David Attenborough, Simon Schama, David Starkey, Michael Palin, Dan Snow, Patrick Moore and so on are all great presenters who know a lot. But TV does need some decent younger presenters for the "intellectual" type shows, and by decent I don't mean irritating and pointless like Kate Humble or Fearne Cotton or Tess Daily.

 

Am watching. Am really enjoying.

Tonight's (3/4) was the weakest (lol), but still a very strong series.

 

He does seem to cover much of the same stuff he did in the last series, and the show seems intent on over-focusing on Brian Cox rather than what he is talking about. Do we really have to have these dramtic shots of him standing with the Sunlight behind him on some rock as though he is the next Messiah? I get he's cool & young and whatnot, but it draws focus away from the science and onto him which is not the purpose of the show.

 

I haven't seen it but I have heard there were a lot of complaints about the background music being too loud and drowning him out. I understand they've reworked the remaining programs as a result.

 

Cox complained about that change, he said the music was important to the show.

I watch it for the visuals mainly.

 

Did you see Everything this evening on BBC FOUR?

 

I think it's a bloody marvellous series!

 

I agree it's good, but I also think it's a little too easy on it's audience sometimes. Cox lingers too long on some explanations, thereby limiting the conclusions he can draw. The BBC FOUR show 'Everything' was much less accomodating and therefore a little more involving. Although - for me - I didn't think even it went quite far enough... I'd still urge those who have seen Wonders to seek it out on iPlayer and catch next weeks show entitled 'Nothing'.

Still, Wonders' first episode did contain one of my favourite bits of TV for quite some time. Towards the end of the episode, when Cox was writing that percentage figure in the sand... he says

"The fact that the Sun will die, and it will incinerate the Earth and obliterate all life on our planet in the process might sound a bit depressing to you. You might legitimately ask, well, surely you could build a Universe in a different way, surely you could build it so it didn't have to descend from order into chaos? Well the answer is, no, you couldn't; not if you wanted life to exist in it. The arrow of time, the sequence of changes that slowly leads the Universe to it's death is the very same thing that creates the conditions for life in the first place. Because it takes time for matter to form, and it takes time for gravity to pull it together into stars and planets. The arrow of time creates a bright window in the Universe's adolescence during which life is possible. But it's a window that doesn't stay open for long. As a fraction of the lifespan of the Universe - as measured from its beginning to the evaporation of the last black hole - life as we know it is only possible for one thousandth of a billion-billion billionth, billion-billion-billionth, billion-billion-billionth of a percent. And that's why, for me, the most astonishing wonder of the Universe isn't a star, or a planet, or a galaxy... it isn't a thing at all. It's an instant in time. That time... is now."

But of a slam dunk moment, I thought. The concept makes me feel special, and yet at the same time ludicrously irrelevant.

 

Patrick Stewart would have said it better.

 

But he couldn't have written it. It's a really earthy statement.

 

Of course he wouldn't have written it. He is han Hactor.

But read it back in his voice

 

Stewart's voice wouldn't have been appropriate.

 

It is ALWAYS appropriate.

Negotiate your way out of this one

 

I agree, Stewart has the right voice for almost everything, James Earl Jones does too.

 

I came across an amusing parody of the show.

Pretty good attempt at his voice too, be advised there's some swearing and stuff like

 

YOU CAN GET ALL ON blue ray.