From “Cosmos Will Get a Sequel Hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson” (Geekdad, August 5, 2011), we learn:
The folks working on it will take their time and do it right — it’s not scheduled to air until sometime in 2013.
The producers of the show say the new series will tell “the story of how human beings began to comprehend the laws of nature and find our place in space and time.” They go on to boast: “It will take viewers to other worlds and travel across the universe for a vision of the cosmos on the grandest scale. The most profound scientific concepts will be presented with stunning clarity, uniting skepticism and wonder, and weaving rigorous science with the emotional and spiritual into a transcendent experience.”
Skepticism? The Sagan crowd could do with a bucket of skepticism; the problem is, they don’t like the real thing. Sagan thought chimpanzees would write autobiographies and space aliens were just over the next asteroid. In what reasonable sense was he a skeptic?