In August 2011, Seth MacFarlane set out for the final frontier — to boldly go where no man had gone before by executive producing a revival of Carl Sagan's PBS documentary miniseries "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage." In an interview, MacFarlane claimed that watching the original "Cosmos" shaped his childhood, and meeting celebrity astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson at a Los Angeles office for the National Academy of Science was the first step in getting the show produced.
This new version, titled "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey," featured Tyson in Sagan's role from the original series. Whereas "A Personal Voyage" covered topics like the creation of life, constellations, and the Big Bang, Tyson educated viewers on black holes, Newton's theory of light, and climate change. A sequel series was released in 2020, featuring Tyson returning as host and MacFarlane back in the executive producer chair. This season covered topics like the Apollo mission to the moon and Sagan himself. Throughout the series, MacFarlane also voiced characters in animated sequences.
This tribute to the late, great astronomer isn't MacFarlane's only contribution to Sagan's legacy. In 2012, shortly after the "Cosmos" revival, he donated Sagan's personal papers to the Library of Congress — a collection dubbed the Seth MacFarlane Collection of the Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan Archive, consisting of Sagan's research, unpublished books, and personal documents like photographs and childhood journals.