Bill Nye noncommittal about hosting second season of 'Cosmos'

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- With the future of Cosmos up in the air, fans are already clamoring for Bill Nye to step in and take the reins. So far, Nye is noncommittal.

Neil deGrasse Tyson was a smash hit as the host of Cosmos, the resurrection of popular science show created by Carl Sagan in the 1980s. Despite the show and Tyson's popularity, America's favorite mustached astrophysicist has already ruled out a second season.

"We're all flattered that people are thinking [about a Season 2] but it's not clear that this was the kind of content you want to rattle off one year after the next," he told TIME in an interview earlier this year. "If some years down the line after my life has recovered, maybe. But I'd like science to be shared by all. If someone else came up and wanted to host it, I don't have any ego invested in the visibility that hosting Cosmos brought to me."

But that doesn't mean a sophomore season with a different host couldn't happen. And the most obvious successor is fan favorite Bill Nye. Until Tyson's stint as Cosmos' host, Nye was surely the most famous and beloved of America's science communicators. So it's no surprise that fans of the show have been quick to anoint Nye.

In a recent Reddit Q&A, Nye strategically sidestepped a question about the possibility of stepping in to Tyson's shoes.

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Why would Neil step down? Neil's a dear friend of mine, so we'd have to take a meeting," Nye said.

It's not a yes, but it wasn't a no, either. Besides, Nye is already on TV every week anyways. The Science Guy has been making the rounds on national news program doing his best to defend the legitimacy of climate science against global warming skeptics.