As Michael Palin seems to have hung up his trusty knapsack and put away his hiking boots, the BBC needs an affable explorer to take his place.
Step forward Simon Reeve, who has, rather quietly, been producing various interviews for the job via a number of travelogues over the past 14 years.
During this time, he has visited the likes of Saudi Arabia, Colombia (where he suffered for his art by contracting malaria), Kenya, Bangladesh, Australia, Greece and, most recently, Turkey.
In 2013, he claimed during an interview that one of the places he’d most like to explore was Russia, so he must have been clapping his hands with glee when the opportunity finally fell into his lap, enabling him to make this three-part series that charts his journey across this massive nation, from east to west.
The trip ties in nicely with the forthcoming 100th anniversary of the 1917 Revolution, and begins in the rugged snow-covered mountains of Kamchatka to Yakutia, the coldest inhabited region in the world, where the only thriving creatures appear to be reindeers and their herders who have adapted to life in temperatures that can dip as low as -30C.
But, as Reeve learns, their way of life is threatened by climate change.
Reeve also passes through the Boreal Forest, meeting en route the conservationist who is working hard to save the native Amur tiger.
He then visits a geographical phenomenon that could turn out to be an environmental disaster and discovers how China is increasingly influencing Russia’s eastern regions.
Russia with Simon Reeve airs Thursday, September 28 at 9pm on BBC Two.
