8.6/1019 votes#1 - Unafraid of the Dark
Season 1 Episode 13 - Aired 6/8/2014
The Ship of the Imagination makes a final journey to explore one of the biggest mysteries of the universe: dark energy. Meet one of science's greatest unsung heroes, Fritz Zwicky, whose prediction of supernovas paved the way for our larger understanding of dark energy, the unknown force in the universe that overwhelms gravity on the grandest scale. On our final voyage, discover the romantic message embedded in Voyager's Interstellar Golden Record and contemplate the spiritual experience of life on Earth as our cosmic journey concludes with Carl Sagan's unforgettable meditation, The Pale Blue Dot.
Director: Ann Druyan
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.4/1038 votes#2 - Standing Up in the Milky Way
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 3/9/2014
The Ship of the Imagination, unfettered by ordinary limits on speed and size, drawn by the music of cosmic harmonies, can take us anywhere in space and time. It has been idling for more than three decades, and yet it has never been overtaken. Its global legacy remains vibrant. Now, it's time once again to set sail for the stars.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.4/1019 votes#3 - The Electric Boy
Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 5/11/2014
Travel to 19th century England and meet Michael Faraday, a child of poverty who grew up to invent the motor and the generator. His ideas about electricity and discovery of magnetic fields changed the world and paved the way for future scientists to make giant strides in the world of high technology and instantaneous communication.
Director: Bill Pope
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.4/109 votes#4 - The Sacrifice of Cassini
Season 2 Episode 8 - Aired 3/30/2020
The mysterious untold story of the scientist who figured out how to go the Moon while fighting for his life in a WWI trench. He wrote a letter to fifty years in the future. It made the Apollo Mission possible. And the saga of the twenty-year long odyssey of a robotic explorer ordered to commit suicide on another world.
Director: Ann Druyan
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.4/1027 votes#5 - Hiding in the Light
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 4/6/2014
The Ship of the Imagination travels back in time to reveal 11th century Europe and North Africa during the golden age of Islam, when brilliant physicist Ibn al-Haytham discovered the scientific method and first understood how we see, and how light travels. Later, William Herschel discovers the infrared and the signature hidden in the light of every star, eventually unlocking one of the keys to the cosmos.
Director: Bill Pope
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.4/1027 votes#6 - When Knowledge Conquered Fear
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 3/23/2014
There was a time, not so long ago, when natural events could only be understood as gestures of divine displeasure. We will witness the moment that all changed; but first, the Ship of the Imagination is in the brooding, frigid realm of the Oort Cloud, where a trillion comets wait. Our Ship takes us on a hair-raising ride, chasing a single comet through its million-year plunge towards the Sun.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.4/1025 votes#7 - Deeper, Deeper, Deeper Still
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 4/13/2014
The Ship of the Imagination ventures on an epic voyage to the bottom of a dewdrop to explore the universe on the smallest scale and observe exotic life forms invisible to the naked eye. Then, host Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the neural network in our brains which determine our sense of smell and memory, and later, he travels deep beneath the surface of the Earth to discover the most mysterious particle we know.
Director: Bill Pope
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.3/1026 votes#8 - A Sky Full of Ghosts
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 3/30/2014
An exploration of how light, time and gravity combine to distort our perceptions of the universe. We eavesdrop on a series of walks along a beach on summer nights in the year 1809. William Herschel, whose many discoveries include the insight that telescopes are time machines, tells bedtime stories to his young son, John, who will grow up to make some rather profound discoveries of his own.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.3/1033 votes#9 - Some of the Things that Molecules Do
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 3/16/2014
Host Neil deGrasse Tyson is on a voyage to explore the relatedness of all living things and the possible evolution of life in the cosmos. Go on a journey to discover how artificial selection turned the wolf into canine breeds and how natural selection sculpted the complex human eye. Later, Tyson visits the grand Hall of Extinction, a monument to all the broken branches on the tree of life. Retrace the story of life on Earth and the unbroken thread that stretches from the first one-celled organisms to human life.
Director: Bill Pope
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.3/107 votes#10 - Blues for a Red Planet
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 10/26/1980
Is there life on Mars? Dr. Sagan takes viewers on a tour of the red planet first through the eyes of science fiction authors, and then through the unblinking eyes of two Viking spacecrafts that have sent thousands of pictures of the stunning Martian landscape back to Earth since 1976. Though based on older Mars missions, Sagan's analysis still holds true.
Director: Adrian Malone
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.3/107 votes#11 - Travellers' Tales
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 11/2/1980
Dr. Sagan compares the exhilaration of 17th-century Dutch explorers who ventured in sailing ships halfway around our planet in their quest for wealth and knowledge to an inside view of the excitement around Voyager's expeditions to Jupiter and Saturn. The newly acquired treasures of our present golden age of exploration are the focus of this episode.
Director: Adrian Malone
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.3/107 votes#12 - Journeys in Space and Time
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 11/16/1980
A voyage to see how star patterns change over millions of years is followed by a journey to the planets of other stars, and a look at the possibility of time travel. This takes us to Italy, where a young Albert Einstein first wondered what it would be like to ride on a beam of light.
Director: Adrian Malone
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.3/107 votes#13 - The Edge of Forever
Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 11/30/1980
Dr. Sagan leads us on some awesome trips — to a time when galaxies were beginning to form, to India to explore the infinite cycles of Hindu cosmology, and to show how humans of this century discovered the expanding universe and its origin in the big bang. He disappears down a black hole and reappears in New Mexico to show us an array of 17 telescopes probing the farthest reaches of space.
Director: Adrian Malone
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.3/1019 votes#14 - The Immortals
Season 1 Episode 11 - Aired 5/18/2014
The Ship of the Imagination travels across the cosmos to discover the possibility of beings that live forever and explain why other civilizations perish. Then, visit the Cosmic Calendar of the Future and contemplate what lies ahead with a hopeful vision.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.3/1017 votes#15 - The World Set Free
Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 6/1/2014
The Ship of the Imagination travels to our near neighbor Venus, where we begin our journey to discover the long history of global warming and the greenhouse effect. Later, explore the detrimental effects of climate change and trace the magnitude of our impact on the Earth’s atmosphere. However, with knowledge, technology and science within our grasp, imagine a hopeful future where we dedicate our efforts to taking care of our home, Planet Earth.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.3/1010 votes#16 - Vavilov
Season 2 Episode 4 - Aired 3/16/2020
In the first half of the 20th century pioneering geneticist Nikolai Vavilov traveled 5 continents assembling a treasury of the worlds seeds. He dreamed that science could be the means to end hunger. His refusal to tell a scientific lie cost him his life. The heroism of his colleagues and its direct impact on your life is one of the most stirring stories in the history of science.
Director: Ann Druyan
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.2/109 votes#17 - The Search for Intelligent Life on Earth
Season 2 Episode 7 - Aired 3/30/2020
A revelation of the hidden underground network that is a collaboration of four kingdoms of life, and a true first contact story between humans and beings who communicate in a symbolic language and have maintained a representative democracy for many tens of millions of years.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.2/1019 votes#18 - The Clean Room
Season 1 Episode 7 - Aired 4/20/2014
To determine the true age of the Earth, geochemist Clair Patterson developed the uranium-lead dating method to make an unprecedented discovery – calculating Earth's age of 4.5 billion years. But Patterson's groundbreaking discoveries were just beginning. Patterson made it his mission to draw public attention to the detrimental effects of lead in the environment and dedicated his career to fighting against the petroleum and chemical industry, eventually achieving public health's biggest victory of the 20th century.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.2/108 votes#19 - One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 10/5/1980
Dr. Sagan's cosmic calendar makes the history of the universe understandable and frames the origin of the Earth and the evolution of life. We see the evolutionary process unfold, from microbes to humans. Our understanding of how life developed on Earth enables us to venture to other worlds for imaginative speculations on what forms life might take elsewhere.
Director: Adrian Malone
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.2/1013 votes#20 - Ladder to the Stars
Season 2 Episode 1 - Aired 3/9/2020
An adventure spanning billions of years into the evolution of life and consciousness. A visit to a 100,000-year-old laboratory. The story of the change in life-style that radically altered human existence and the life of the heretic who found god in the book of nature, opening our way to the stars.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.2/1012 votes#21 - The Fleeting Grace of the Habitable Zone
Season 2 Episode 2 - Aired 3/9/2020
There is no refuge from change in the cosmos. There will come a time in the life of the Sun when Earth will no longer be a home for us. The story of our ancestors who rose to a comparable challenge and a long-term vision of our future on other worlds.
Director: Ann Druyan
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.2/108 votes#22 - Magic Without Lies
Season 2 Episode 9 - Aired 4/6/2020
Meet the man who stumbled on a hole in the reality of quantum mechanics and the still-unfolding technology that made it possible.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.2/1019 votes#23 - Sisters of the Sun
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 4/27/2014
Discover the remarkable story of Annie Jump Cannon and Cecilia Payne, two incredible women who challenged conventional wisdom and uncovered the real-life story of the stars. Cannon led a group of female astronomers in the early 20th century to catalogue the spectral characters of stars, and two decades later, young British beauty Payne joined forces with Cannon to analyze the data and uncover the chemical compositions of the stars. Later, travel on the Ship of the Imagination to explore the lives and deaths of stars.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.1/108 votes#24 - A Tale of Two Atoms
Season 2 Episode 10 - Aired 4/6/2020
How a deadly embrace between science and state altered the fate of the world, and a gripping cautionary tale of mass casualty and unlikely survival.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
8.1/1019 votes#25 - The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth
Season 1 Episode 9 - Aired 5/4/2014
The Ship of the Imagination embarks on a journey through space and time to grasp how the autobiography of the Earth is written in its atoms, its oceans, its continents and all living things. Later, American geologist Marie Tharp creates the first true map of Earth’s ocean floor, and discovers microscopic life that exists deep beneath the ocean.
Director: Brannon Braga
Writer: Ann Druyan
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The Best Episodes Written By Ann Druyan
Every TV Episode Written by Ann Druyan Ranked from Best to Worst by Thousands of Voters
Ann Druyan Ratings Summary
"Unafraid of the Dark" is the best rated episode written by Ann Druyan. It scored 8.6/10 based on 19 votes. It was directed by Ann Druyan. It aired on 6/8/2014 and is rated 0.2 points higher than their second-best episode, "Standing Up in the Milky Way".