Following the wildly successful 'Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,' Neil deGrasse Tyson returns as host to translate more revelations of science into a lavish transporting experience, taking audiences on a series of spiritual voyages of exploration. The show reveals previously uncharted realms, including lost worlds, worlds yet to come, and the worlds that humans may one day inhabit. Ann Druyan, original creative collaborator to Carl Sagan, whose iconic docuseries 'Cosmos' provided inspiration for this series, serves as executive producer alongside Seth MacFarlane. Episode 1 takes viewers on a wild ride with the Ship of Imagination in an adventure spanning billions of years into the evolution of life.
In the last episode, despite disturbing revelations of wrongdoing at Three Mile Island before and after the accident, the utility fights to bring the plant back online. Its Unit 1 had its license temporarily suspended following the incident at Unit 2. Although the citizens of the three counties surrounding the site voted by an overwhelming margin to retire Unit 1 permanently in a non-binding resolution in 1982, it was permitted to resume operations in 1985 following a 4–1 vote by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In 2017, it was announced that operations would cease by 2019 due to financial pressure from cheap natural gas, unless lawmakers stepped in to keep it open. Unit 1 shut down on September 20, 2019. Billed as the worst nuclear incident in U.S. history, what’s particularly scary here is how close Three Mile Island incident came to becoming a national disaster. Without giving away the whole story, cost-cutting 'solutions' almost cause a catastrophic disaster.
Jean Hargadon Wehner discusses how she came to remember years later the sexual abuse she suffered at Archbishop Keough High School. She also talks about what happened when she reported the abuse to Church officials and how she realized she was connected to the death of Sister Cathy Cesnik. As the can of worms is opened on the hidden world in the high school and the people begin to talk about what happened behind closed doors. With the Jean’s accusations, Abbie Schaub, Gemma Hoskins, and Tom Nugent learn about a story of a graveyard and a source nicknamed 'Deep Throat' who could hold the key.
Lil Hughes Knipp recalls meeting Father Maskell near his end... and knowing that he would never be charged. The search for Brother Bob and a potential killer begins, and the revelation of a potential suspect named Edgar Davidson comes forward with an interesting story. With more people coming forward, more suspects appear including a man named Billy Schmidt who lived in Cathy’s apartment. A contact from one of Cathy’s sisters could give new insight on the case.
Even as the science grew more certain, the oil industry continued to block action to tackle climate change in the new millennium. In a revelatory interview, Christine Todd Whitman, George W. Bush's former environment chief, tells the story of how the industry successfully lobbied President Bush to reverse course on his campaign promise to regulate carbon emissions. Tensions grew between two of the world's biggest oil companies, ExxonMobil and BP, after the latter publicly called for action to tackle climate change. The election of Barack Obama provided hope for supporters of climate action, but the billionaire Koch brothers made an effort to block the new president's attempts to pass climate change legislation, and climate denialism became the mainstream position of the Republican Party. A lawyer who worked for Koch brothers through this period speaks on camera for the first time.
Episode 1 takes viewers on a wild ride with the Ship of Imagination in an adventure spanning billions of years into the evolution of life.