Earlier today, it was announced that COSMOS: A SpaceTime Odyssey received an impressive 12 Emmy nominations in the following categories:

Outstanding Art Direction For Variety, Nonfiction, Reality or Reality-Competition Program

Outstanding Cinematography For Nonfiction Programming

Outstanding Directing For Nonfiction Programming

Outstanding Picture Editing For Nonfiction Programming

Outstanding Music Composition For A Series (Original Dramatic Score)

Outstanding Main Title Design

Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music

Outstanding Documentary Or Nonfiction Series

Outstanding Sound Editing For Nonfiction Programming (Single Or Multi-Camera)

Outstanding Sound Mixing For Nonfiction Programming

Outstanding Special And Visual Effects

Outstanding Writing For Nonfiction Programming

For reference, in 1981, the original Cosmos received five nominations, winning three Emmys.

Not that they’re planning to make a second season of the show, but the nominations bode well for primetime science programs in the future. In fact, the National Geographic Channel International announced this week that the show surpassed their wildest expectations:

A whopping 135 million people — including 45 million in the U.S. — watched at least some of the 13-part science series, National Geographic Channel announced today. Overall, it aired on all 90 National Geographic Channels as well as 120 Fox-branded channels in 125 countries, making this the largest global launch ever for a television series.

Not bad at all. Now, if only there were some way to discern how many Creationists watched the show…

Even if COSMOS doesn’t take home any Emmys in the categories that focus on the show’s content, Seth MacFarlane, Ann Druyan, and their entire team deserve a lot of credit for bringing an intelligent program to network television and doing justice to Carl Sagan‘s original series.