Great news! I really enjoy Neil deGrasse Tyson as well. He's the most down to Earth conversational astrophysicist I've seen since Sagan. I also like the fact that he had a direct connection with Sagan too.
Well, there you go. That right there shows that it needn't stay the same, and if it needs to evolve slightly, then more power to them. It certainly gets people talking
Cartoons are not inherently lesser as an art form, the content of the cartoons was good, well presented and cleverly done to be atmospheric, provided a visual distinction from the live action components and avoided the issues that come with live action reenactment in documentaries like the wonky acting and dubious production values. I'm thrilled at this news, Cosmos was a great series and I'm really looking forward to more.
I'm not saying that cartoons aren't artistic in general (although there are a LOT of them that are utter crap). I'm saying that I don't like them in Cosmos. As for acting, the only "wonky" acting I noticed in original Cosmos was in the episode about UFOs and other extraordinary claims that don't have any solid evidence to back them up. The actor playing Barney Hill must have thought he was playing a robot instead of a man supposedly under the control of aliens. The rest of the scenes in the series that used live actors were fine.
I finished the new season—with Neil taking a travel bubble with a “virtual” Einstein. I on the other hand, got stuck with Zwicky. For 20 minutes I was stuck in the spherical travel pod being called a spherical bastard—and how if I put on any more weight, the planets would start orbiting **me.**