Standing on the Milky Way

The series begins with a brief introduction recorded by President Barack Obama. This introduction describes the "spirit of discovery" and explains the purpose of the series, which is to instill this "spirit" in the audience ^{[11] [12]} .

The episode opens with Tyson’s reflections on the importance of the original “Cosmos” and its goals. He presents the audience with a “ship of imagination”, one of the elements of the narration in the show, and with the help of it shows the present, past and possible future of the Earth. Having flown on a “ship”, Tyson reveals to the viewer the so-called “cosmic address” of the Earth, which begins with the name of the planet itself and ends with the Virgo Supercluster and the observed Universe . Later, Tyson explains that humanity did not always define the “space address” as it is now, and describes the fate of the Italian Renaissance scholar Jordan Bruno (with the help of a new element of the narrative - animated inserts), which the church pursued for ideas about the rotation of the Earth around the Sun. To show the vision of Bruno (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) of the structure of the cosmos, an animated adaptation of the Flammarion engraving , created in the 19th century and now becoming a common Internet meme denoting the revelation of the secrets of the Universe, was used.

The episode continues with the transition from the theme of space to the theme of time. Tyson introduces the concept of the Cosmic Calendar , another regular element of the story, to review the entire history of the observable universe from the Big Bang to the present day. The whole point comes down to the fact that this story is compressed to one calendar year, in which the Big Bang takes place at midnight on January 1, and the whole human story takes the last 14 seconds of the last minute on December 31. After the story about the Cosmic Calendar, Tyson finishes the episode with a story about how he was inspired by Karl Sagan.

Ann Druyan , Stephen Soter and astrophysicist Neil Degrass Tyson planned to create a new, different modern version of the series “ Cosmos: a personal journey ” and for a long time tried to offer this idea to various television networks even after the death of Karl Sagan ^[13] . In 2008, at the opening of the Science & Entertainment Exchange , producer Seth Macfarlane met Tyson, whom Tyson introduced Ann Druyan, and a year later Seth Macfarlane learned about the idea of ​​creating a modern version of Cosmos ^[14] . Seth Macfarlane became interested in this idea and successfully presented it to the management of the Fox television network ^[15] .

The director of the episode “Standing on the Milky Way” was Brannon Braga , and the script was written for him by Ann Druyan and Stephen Soter. The main narrative of the episode included a description of the life of the philosopher Giordano Bruno, who, as well as several other minor characters, was voiced by Seth MacFarlane ^[16] . The New York studio DIVE VFX, which, among other things, created a “plurality of star clusters, galaxies, nebulae” ^[17] , dealt with special effects for the series, and for this episode, among other things. “Standing on the Milky Way” for the first time demonstrates the renewed “ship of imagination”, created according to the concept of the artist Ryan Church , which The Verge website described as “The“ Enterprise ”by JJ Abrams ^[18] . The producer of animated inserts was Kara Wallow ^[19] .

The premiere of the episode on Fox TV gathered 5.77 million viewers, setting a rating of 2.1 / 5 in the age category 18-49 ^{[20] [21]} . However, according to the Nielsen rating , "the episode was broadcast on 10 different Fox TV channels, including the National Geographic Channel and FX, gathered a total of 8.5 million viewers" ^[22] . Also, executive producer of the series Seth MacFarlane posted the episode on Twitter's interactive network, where only 12 million Americans watched it live and another 17.5 million viewers watched this video through digital video recorders ^[23] .

“Standing on the Milky Way” was well received by critics. John Aunty from The AV Club put the episode “B” ^[24] . According to a statement in his positive review of the series: ““ Cosmos: space and time ”is an ambitious and strange series. During each 44-minute weekly episode, he tries to convey all the most expansive discoveries of mankind. This is more than ambitious ” ^[24] . The disadvantage of the show, he called "inaccurate descriptions, which with the development of the episode is noticeable more and more" ^[24] . IGN 's Max Nicholson rated the episode at 8.5 (“excellent”), concluding that “the documentary series doesn’t fit in with its somewhat contradictory description of religious beliefs, but it conveys the olive branch to creative thinking and plays with the concept of faith with its whimsical look on the macro world " ^[16] . Journalist Phil Platt of Slate also gave a positive review about the show, writing that he views the episode "as an expression of a more interesting and substantive opinion about the suppression of thought and the magnificence of the freedom to research ideas" ^[25] .

There were also reviews that sharply criticized the episode for historical inaccuracy in the biography of Giordano Bruno , as well as for the fact that the episode practically did not consider other, more famous astronomers of that time, such as Copernicus or Galileo , as well as such philosophers as Nikolai Orem and Nikolai Kuzansky who made a hypothesis about a set of worlds much earlier than Bruno ^{[26] [27]} . Reviewers also complained about the inaccuracy that all Bruno’s problems did not necessarily fall on him because of his faith in many worlds ^{[26] [27]} .

During the premiere of the episode on Oklahoma City's Fox network channel, KOKH-TV (also known as Fox 25), a small incident occurred - right in the middle of Tyson’s monologue about human development, a 15-second video advertised nine-hour news for Fox 25 prime-time. ^[28] . Later, the channel’s management apologized, calling the incident “operator’s mistake,” denying all the possibilities that it was done on purpose ^{[29] [30] [31]} .

• Standing Up in the Milky Way on the Internet Movie Database
• cosmosontv.com - the official website Standing on the Milky Way
• " Standing Up in the Milky Way " at the National Geographic Channel site