This year will see a new face assuming the lead role in one of the BBC’s flagship programmes. I’m not talking about Doctor Who but Film 2010, which will have a presenter-sized space to fill when Jonathan Ross leaves the show in a few months. So, who will Wossy wegenewate into? Will the Beeb opt for the HD-friendly features of a James King or an Alex Zane? Or will they make a sharp U-turn out of the dumbing-down cul-de-sac they find themselves in and take this opportunity to relaunch Film 2010 as something more than a starstruck publicity platform for mainstream cinema?

Since the programme began in the early 1970s it has had a number of presenters, including Frederic Raphael, Iain Johnstone and Joan Bakewell. The longest-serving host was Barry Norman, who helmed for around a quarter of a century until Jonathan Ross took over in 1999. While the show’s basic format of reviews punctuated by on-set reports and film-related features has largely remained the same, in many ways it’s now unrecognisable from its earliest incarnation. This is partly a result of changes in cinema itself, which is a very different beast in the Noughties than it was during its New Hollywood heyday. There are considerably more movies released these days, so Film 2010’s reviews have become shorter and more clip-led in order to cram more coverage into the show’s allotted time. The prevalence of dollar-bloated, publicity-hungry blockbusters also means that edgier fare has to punch above its weight for airtime – and usually loses.

Movie people have changed, too. Gone are the days when thespian roués would mention their new film in passing while recounting colourful tales of bacchanalian excess and fisticuffs. Modern actors and directors are media-savvy soundbite delivery units who’ve been schooled to reveal nothing more than is absolutely necessary, often to 20 different journalists in exactly the same words.

But that’s only part of the story. Jonathan Ross is a passionate film fan and old VHS tapes of his 1980s Channel 4 series The Incredibly Strange Film Show are still highly valued by lovers of cult cinema. He knows his Tsui Hark from his Raiders Of The Lost Ark and his Tom Savini from his Tom Cruise. When he took over as host of Film 1999 from the mainstream meanderings of Barry Norman, it was assumed – or at least, hoped – that it would lead to a fresh approach (there was also widespread relief that Johnny Vaughan didn’t get the job). However, aside from the occasional scathing review (including, oddly, a poacher-turned-gamekeeper dismissal of Kevin Smith’s excellent Clerks II), it’s been a case of same old same old.

I find it hard to believe that Jonathan Ross’s eye for the mondo bizarre has become clouded, but rather that he’s been restricted by the show’s format and the BBC’s recumbent, counter-Tianemen position whenever it sees a Hollywood blockbuster bearing down on it. The need to attract big names to the Friday Night With Jonathan Ross sofa may also have led to compromise. Introducing, say, Shia LaBeouf as the charmless ferret-faced star of the brain-dead Transformers movies probably wouldn’t go down too well. As Ricky Gervais brilliantly proved at the Golden Globes, Hollywood can’t laugh at itself.

Now the BBC has to decide what it wants Film 2010 to be. Over the holiday period it screened a couple of excellent seasons on film noir and Orson Welles, so the ability to educate, inform and entertain is clearly still alive within the walls of Television Centre. It can further enhance its connection to its Reithian past by announcing Mark Kermode as the new presenter of Film 2010. Famously not prone to compromise, with the ability to embrace work as wide-ranging as The Exorcist and High School Musical 3, Dr K’s appointment would put the show in very capable – and very big – hands.

Incidentally, bookies Paddy Power are taking bets on who’ll get the job. Mark Kermode is the odds-on favourite, but most of the rest of the list makes for very depressing reading:

9/4 Graham Norton
8/1 Rick Edwards (you couldn’t make it up)
10/1 Chris Moyles (you must be making it up)
14/1 Iain Johnstone
18/1 Barry Norman
33/1 Terry Wogan
100/1 Russell Brand

Considering some of the unlikely names on that list, it might be worth sticking a couple of quid on Roman Polanski.

Colin Houlson