I’m not going to lie, I’ve learnt everything I know from TV. When I was about 10 years old, there was one show that completely gripped my imagination and through its use of language and imagery, changed the way I looked at the world. That programme was Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. I know, I know, compared to today’s TV documentaries it is old-fashioned and slow, but this TV was made in a time when there was a level of intelligence involved and things didn’t rely on celebrity endorsements or CGI graphics. This programme taught me a lot about the world (the same way LIfe on Earth did) and caused me to look upwards a lot. Why don’t we look upwards anymore?
Well anyway, I’ve been aching to get a copy of this TV series since I heard it came out on DVD a couple of years back. Whenever I am lucky enough to travel to the US, I always search the DVD shelves for a copy, but I’ve never been lucky. I could buy a copy from eBay but the prices have always been just that little bit prohibitive. Well a few weeks ago, I saw a Chinese copy on eBay going for about £10 with postage. I couldn’t resist and the item arrived today in the post.
OK – the packaging isn’t up to much, but the discs are superb and I had a little preview of the first episode. As the opening music by Vangelis surrounded me in 5.1 stereo, I felt my eyes becoming moist. I was little ltitle optomistic kid again. Of course, I realised that this was the first time I had even seen the show in colour. The first and only time I saw it was on the family’s old black and white TV. We were poor and didn’t get a colour set until the late 1980s. Anyway, I look forward to torturing The Missus with this over the next 13 episodes. 🙂
Also in the post: The 21st Century Guide to King Crimson Part One
OK, OK. I know I already own this, but being a complete King Crimson collection whore, I decided to purchase this version too. The original version came in a large cardboard sleeve and was custom bound into a long hardback book. This version is the size of a CD case and features four separate CD jewel cases and a separate booklet.
Here are the photos:

The two sets, side-by-side

The smaller set revealed

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