Purely Joyful Movie!

Excellent, a Must See

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

I loved this series, being a big fan of the Cosmos series my feeling is that Brian Cox has the best of Sagan's ability to explain and transmit the excitement and joy of astronomy and physics, he keeps it interesting, exciting and simple to us all non-scholars of complicated astrophysics. I found very interesting that he made huge references to the Cosmos series, he sure is a big fan of Sagan's work and he passes that with a more modern twist and the use of nice CGI. Overall a great documentary and a nice addition to other Universe related films, the locations filmed are amazing and Professor Cox's way of talking is mesmerizing.

I was shocked to find this "documentary" has almost 9 points on IMDb. This show is watchable if you have never seen any documentary about our universe before. In that case I can understand how this show got 9 points, its strong points are; beautiful scenery and space CGI mixed together with some jaw dropping numbers.If however you have seen ANY previous documentaries about space, you will be greatly disappointed. 70 percent of the screen time is taken up by our presenter Brian Cox, who for some reason thinks its a good idea to grin and walk around in slow motion in front of the sunlight. All the while talking about some of the most obvious scenarios in space.So if you have never seen a documentary about space before, this could be worth a watch. If however you are even MILDLY educated in physics/cosmology all this show has to offer is beautifully shot scenery (space and nature) with a very annoying commentator. The information was so stretched out, that I think they could have done a single episode instead of 4.

Within the first twenty minutes we learn that the universe is very old, that you can't go back in time, that a year is when the earth revolves around the sun once, that the universe appears eternal and never changing(even though, spoilers, it isn't) and that time is irreversible and changes things. Brian Cox manages to repeat this last fact about ten times, seemingly challenging our notion of time and trying to make us believe we have been caught in some broken record of an alternate universe. For any person, whether you are physics graduate or you have simply completed one year of primary school, this is not news.The BBC seem satisfied with squandering an obviously large budget on admittedly impressive but ultimately useless shots of far away landscapes. This series simply looks for the money shots, whilst giving the writing job to a nine year old boy with adhd. Time is irreversible, now heres a turtle, time is irreversible, now heres a glacier, time is irreversible, now heres a cool simulation of an explosion! Though clearly trying to emulate the same wonder and respect for the universe that Carl Sagan had, Brian Cox's exhilaration seems completely artificial. This shows that today, documentaries are willing to sacrifice learning and wonder for special effects and plane tickets to anywhere that takes their fancy, no matter how relevant to the message it is.

I'm not sure what some people were looking for here. It's not meant to be a university lecture. But it is meant to be a way to communicate to the average person (who may reside in Jesusland instead of an ivory tower) our current knowledge about the universe.Yes, Brian Cox is beautiful. Who do you want to learn from? He's enthusiastic, friendly, nice to look at, and knowledgeable. That's exactly who should be presenting science. Look at who you are competing against, for viewers.While I was expecting something like a visit to various celestial objects, similar to a tour of our solar system (and we do get a bit of stuff like that), this takes a much wider view.We see the sheer size of the universe, in both space and time. We see how a universe like ours is necessary to support life, but that life can only exist for a relative instant. And then we explore two other big concepts on the scale of the universe: gravity and light (although frankly, the first two episodes are sufficient by themselves).This is, without a doubt, the clearest documentary description of humanity's place in the universe that I have seen. And it is presented in a way that properly dramatizes it, and simultaneously shows off the beauty of Earth as well.The two minor drawbacks I see are: the episode order is in roughly decreasing emotional impact and should be adjusted/edited, and there are too many repetitive shots of Brian in the same place (for example, standing on the peak of a mountain).