Munching to the carnage

Just when you thought the chasm between National Geographic TV and those wholesome, yellow-spined magazines aging on your bookshelf couldn't be any wider, along comes NG's "Most Amazing Moments" -- a program packing two hyper hours of blood, disaster, triumph and close shaves that doesn't at all equal the sum of its parts but will easily pass the time between your last bag of Cheetos and "When Animals Attack III."

The production's ad-paced string of snack-sized "moments" packs it all in under familiar headings like "Unexpected Killers," "Deadly Animal Encounters," "Nature's Fury" and "Danger Zone." Covered ground includes a freak baboon attack on a flamingo, the discovery of the Titanic, a Florida family's survival of Hurricane Andrew and an egret being eaten alive by piranhas.

Wait, no shark attack? Two of them. Python wrestling? Check. Twister flattening a barn in South Dakota? Got it. Eight lions eviscerating a water buffalo are accompanied by tasteful narration: "These lions like their meat rare."

It's all in there. Pass the guacamole.

-- Jordan Rane