The Net Is Vast and Infinite...

"The Universe" (2007)

Rating ... C (41)

Given a program dedicated to the principle of humans as specks on an infinitessimally sized planet in our ever-expanding universe, is it any wonder audience under-estimation is the downfall of The History Channel's The Universe? The sun, moon, stars - and everything in between - function as reliable firestarters for The Universe's first season, but the simplistic manner in which such topics are presented makes the series reads more like My First Astronomy Lesson than the second coming of Space: The Final Frontier.

Of course, for a number of folks The Universe probably does serve as a celestial initiation. Moreover it's nearly impossible to find an aperture that satisfies all the varying cosmological backgrounds viewers will bring to the table. The problem is that all parties involved deserve better than the barrage of over-arching analogies they're given. To say that The Universe is inundated with ludicrous parallels is putting it mildly; literally every conceit ever touched upon is given its own comparison to something. The heliocentric first episode starts off on the wrong foot with a far-flung, drawn-out illustration where cue balls represent subatomic particles - because we needed the beer-and-pretzels visual metaphor for elucidation! - and later episodes only run with the concept. With Earth's bombardment by meteorites is equated to a boxing match, planetary orbits to an amusement park, and naturally, never-ending distance and proportion comparisons, The Universe's broad knowledge base begins to feel a lot closer to baby steps than intellectual leaps and bounds.

To make matters worse, a number of episodes harbor a garish disaster-movie mentality, as if to imply threatening audiences is the optimal way to retain their interest. Overtly shoddy CGI spectacles demonstrate the hypothetical havoc that gamma ray bursts, chaotic weather patterns, or impact by Near-Earth Objects would wreak were they to occur on Earth; only afterwards does a talking head emerge and admit that the odds of such an occurrence are abysmal, if not nil. For a program that professes its aim to be finding Earth's place in the cosmos, transposing its being - if only in theory - onto what makes other planets unique seems like a poor way to begin.

But there is a bright side, if only sporadically. Certain shots are obviously constructed with subtlety and purpose. A coastal scene where a scientist explains how stars generate is energy is both front-lit by a campfire and back-lit by the sun - a disaster by lighting standards - but in its physical positioning of its occupant by the campfire (representative of Earth's current technology) with the sun (nuclear fusion) in the distant background effectively illustrates the unfortunate reality that humans may be lifetimes away from such a flawless source of fuel.

And then there's the final episode of the season, which is so vastly superior to what came before it that one might be tempted to forget the preceeding mediocrity and pandering. (Actual Show Quote: "Supernova ... to the extreme!") Though still fairly repetitive and emblematic of what undermines the other thirteen installments (the analogy this time is a carnival called Einstein World), The Universe finally makes good on its promise of exploring human progress. After a brief introduction to the Big Bang, we're thrust back to Copernicus and hurtled through the gamut of astronomers and physicists from Kepler to Einstein whose accomplishments fit together to form the puzzle of our current scientific understanding of the universe. In particular, the debate between Hoyle (a proponent of universal "always has been, always will be" steady state) and Gamow / Lemaitre (purveyors of the expanding universe, Big Bang theory) reveals an uncomfortable facet of scientific pursuit. Hoyle's ideas would be proved wrong in the 60's with the discovery of cosmic background radiation, though he died in 2001, still resolute in his own beliefs and incapable of understanding why people abandoned steady state for the infinitely more unsettling (if substantiated) Big Bang theory where dark energy would eventually rip apart all matter in the expanding universe. Here, The Universe applauds mankind for overcoming subjective science, opting to label science as what we perceive as truth, not what we find to be existentially reaffirming. This episode's ability to convey universal transience and admit that Earth is hardly central, but rather on the outside looking in is ardent and awe-inspiring in every way the prior thirteen were not; bogged down by superfluous metaphor, The Universe never quite comprehends there's little point in advocating a new way of thinking if your wisdom is all imparted in terms of the old way.