OT: "Savage Garden"

Howdy, all!
My husband, the award-winning TV critic, brought home a preview tape for a
gardening, uh, philosophy show so entertaining I urge everyone who can to
watch it. If you have cable TV and get TBS, tune in at 6 p.m. Central/7p.m.
Eastern time June 22 for "Savage Garden."
Narrated by the comic actor Leslie Neilsen, this hour-long entry in the
"National Geographic Explorer" series includes astounding closeup and
stop-action footage of gruesome predatory and sexual behaviors by garden
fauna delivered with such horrifying elan we wound up rolling on the floor
laughing.
Squeamish people and small children must *not* watch. For instance, the
poor lady who is so terrified of spiders and snakes she doesn't want to go
into her shed, she probably should not watch. But if you are kind of
thrilled that granddaddy longlegs is designed with quick-release legs, if
you say "ooh, neat" when you step barefoot into mud, this is your kind of
show.

The camera watches an acorn weevil the size of a grain of rice so closely
we see the liquid acorn fat zipping up its proboscis. A mole squeezes out
an earthworm like a tube of toothpaste. Bees swarm an invading wasp and
*bake* it to death! There is insect sex galore, much of it staged with
alarming attention to detail, and anthropomorphism of the sort that makes
you rather fond of the shrew for eating the head off the garter snake.

I will be interested to hear other listers' opinions on whether this
entertaining show helps or harms the cause it playfully purports to
espouse, namely encouraging respect and understanding of garden fauna. You
are not God in your garden, Neilsen implies. But the tone is so hilarious
and lighthanded, and he says so little about the problem of pesticide
overuse that ... well, you guys watch and tell me what you think.

celia
storey@aristotle.net
Little Rock, Arkansas
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