Pretty-much the ENTIRE world may have been completely wrong about Seth MacFarlane

Ironically enough, the ONLY place (other than reality, as it turns out...) you could expect to hear a confluence of "somethings" this random would be a "remember that time..." cutaway on "Family Guy." Seth MacFarlane is so insanely powerful at the Fox network that he has the "pull" to get pretty-much anything he wants greenlit, made and run in a cushy slot. He's already flexed that muscle to set up one coming-soon project, a modern (stone age) revamp of "The Flintstones;" and now we know that the next one is yet another classic-TV callback: A new incarnation of "Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos.'"

...Really. And no, it's not a "spoof" or a "takeoff." It's a 'continuation' of "Cosmos" - in which Sagan explained 'big idea' science about the universe - to be hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. The creator of "Family Guy" is using his clout to get Fox to run an educational science documentary on PRIME TIME TELEVISION. WTF!?Granted, the "line" of MacFarlane has always been that he's a much more intelligent, thoughtful (to say nothing of nice) guy than a lot of his material might suggest... but you've got to admit this is waaaay the fuck out of left field. Fox (of all networks) opting to run a show where an astrophysicist explains how scientific phenomena works as a prime-time series is unbelievable in and of itself; but coming from MacFarlane? Never would've called that.


Just to give you an idea of how unlike anything you'd ever expect to run on a network today this is, here's how the original looked/sounded:



Now, granted - I wouldn't be surprised if the final version of this new one DOES end up having some kind of more humorous or "energetic" angle to it, a science-based cousin to The Daily Show, something like that. But still... holy shit. A billion Freshmen frat-pledges bulk-buying (and watching to the point of memorization) the first three seasons of a canceled "Simpsons" stepchild almost a decade ago results in the return of "Cosmos" to TV.

What's next? Is Michael Bay going to donate a trillion dollars and personally re-start the American Space Program? Larry The Cable Guy gonna personally install an American interstate bullet-train system?