Ann Druyan preserves the
legacy of Sagan’s ‘Cosmos’
with ‘A Spacetime Odyssey’
By Brandon Fibbs
How often are you so moved by your job
that you actually shed tears? On “Cosmos:
A SpaceTime Odyssey,” this was a fairly
regular occurrence. It is impossible to work on
something of such scale and import without
being overcome, now and again, in the exact
same way you hope your audience will be.
I will never forget the first day that Ann
Druyan, Carl Sagan’s widow and the writer
and executive producer of both series, first
arrived in Los Angeles from her home in Ithaca,
New York. Ann has a bearing and poise all her
own, at once professorial and maternal.
While the production office would eventually
be transformed into a well-oiled machine
– a sort of anthill of organized chaos that is
representative of all Hollywood productions
“
We’ve designed ‘Cosmos’ to have a very long shelf life.
It’s not about the latest hypothesis. It’s about something else.
It’s about the aggregate of human discovery”
– it was then little more than a skeleton crew,
assembled to prime the proverbial creative
pumps. We gathered – the director, writers,
producers and staff – in a room plastered
from floor to ceiling with inspirational imagery,
research photographs and concept art.
As we took our places around the table, and
I prepared to read the first episode aloud, Ann,
in a tone that is both nurturing and instructive,
told us stories about her life with Carl, the
experiences they’d had making the first show,
and how she wanted to honor his enduring
legacy with this new work. “Carl would be so, so
proud of each of you,” she said, “and what we
are all about to undertake here.” Suddenly the
room became blurry and I realized I had tears
in my eyes.
This was not just another television show that
will air and be just as quickly forgotten. It was
clear, even in the very beginning, that we were
participating in something incredibly special
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and unique, a work of exquisite narrative
power and profound human insight, a piece
of entertainment that literally has the power to
change the way people see themselves and
their place in the universe.
No one on this planet was closer to Carl
Sagan than Ann Druyan. Her intimacy has
preserved his spirit with a fierce passion and
uncompromising resolve, and she poured that
essence into this new work. She was the keeper
of Carl’s flame, and it was the plumb line that
guided everything we did.
One of my favorite memories was of being
present in the screening room when a rough
cut of a scene was shown describing how a
then young Neil deGrasse Tyson first met the
famous Cornell astronomer. It was a beautiful
and ephemeral moment, and in the dark of
– Ann Druyan
the theater, I saw Ann reach across to tightly
squeeze the hand of our director, Brannon
Braga, before wiping tears from her eyes. We’d
gotten it right.
Ann worked doggedly and tirelessly,
overseeing nearly every aspect of the
production. Hers was the sort of unbending
tenacity that came both from inexperience
– recall that the first “Cosmos” was made
more than three decades ago and for PBS,
not a behemoth like FOX – and an absolute
and uncompromising vision for every detail of
the far distant finish line. And yet, despite this
resolve, Ann still managed to produce a work
that can stand entirely on its own, unmistakably
an offspring of the original series, but with a
tone, energy and voice all its own.
Brandon Fibbs is a writer and producer in Los
Angeles, California. He was the Research
Coordinator on “Cosmos: A SpaceTime
Odyssey,” his very first Hollywood gig.
www.RocketSTEM.org