With so much media and popular attention focused on the nations and cultures of Western Europe, it's easy to forget that much of Europe is relatively new to the western world: new to democracy, new nations with new governments, finding ways to create their new cultures and a sense of national identity in the aftermath of post-Soviet life. World traveler Michael Palin, having ventured all over the world, smartly chooses Eastern Europe as the destination for this BBC special, to see, now that the iron curtain has been pulled aside, what life there is really like. Like his previous adventures, such as Pole to Pole and Around the Rim, Palin's endless fascination and infectious sense of curiosity in the places he visits and people he meets, is what really makes the show tick. Whether he's exploring the remarkable Turkish community of Geme, where rocks have been carved to form homes, or boating down a river in Romania to visit the ancestral home of Vlad the Impaler (the home of Bram Stoker's Count Dracula), Palin finds a way to keep the discoveries coming. Traveling through 20 countries as diverse as Turkey and Russia can be taxing, even on a well-traveled celebrity, but with his natural-born wit he keeps the program light enough to be entertaining (a few laughs help to leaven the sometimes dreary reality of certain locales), and succeeds in shining a new light into parts of the world long obscured by a shroud of darkness. --Daniel Vancini