Fight club: TV's wilder kingdom

Imagine a prime-time drama in which a detective pounces on a suspect, tears his skin off with his teeth, then proceeds to have unclothed, unbridled sex with his partner. It would never happen -- unless the cops were a couple of lions.

The nature documentary, once considered a cuddly alternative to a trip to the zoo, has become the most graphic and gratuitous genre in entertainment. A colleague of mine, who shall remain nameless, drools so much over footage of animal attacks on YouTube that I'm thinking about turning him in to PETA.

He's not alone. Cable executives are so sure there's a wide audience for "nature lovers" that they've just launched National Geographic Wild, a network that captures grizzlies stalking elk calves, crocodiles slithering into the lions' den and sharks searching for a midafternoon snack.

Even PBS' venerable "Nature" series is getting into the act. In this weekend's appropriately titled episode, "Moment of Impact," we get a blow-by-blow, swipe-by-swipe analysis of how a lion brings down a wildebeest.

Discovery Channel's "Life," the 11-part series that debuted last week, could just as easily have been called "Death," as it spotlights everything from a Komodo dragon poisoning a water buffalo to a Venus Flytrap luring in its prey.

Animal Planet has seen its audience grow ever since it rebranded itself two years ago and began developing shows such as "Fatal Attractions" and "River Monsters," in which human beings interact with deadly beasts, sometimes with disastrous results.

"We think the audience is ready for the new, gutsy compelling stories that we're telling now, stories that happen on those margins where the lives of humans and animals intersect," said Marjorie Kaplan, president of Animal Planet Media. "It's the place where we humans get to remember and get to reexperience that primal flicker in ourselves that we do not want to see extinguished."

Of course, that jerk wasn't born yesterday, but the toys that feed his grotesque desires were.

New high-definition cameras that can do everything from shooting 3,000 frames a second to slipping into tiny burrows have made it easier for filmmakers to capture their subjects in more intimate -- and ferocious -- ways.

"It really has to do with the extraordinary technology that is available to filmmakers," said Janet Hess, research editor for "Nature." "We're now able to catch a bat in the middle of the night catching an insect with its feet. These are things you've never seen before."

Hess would certainly take umbrage if I defined "Moment of Impact" as "animal porn."

"The point is not just to see a gory scene," she said. "The point is to understand what's going on. Once we do, we move on."

"I think there is an aspect of the daily drama of survival in the natural world, but it's not something we intend to bang on ruthlessly," he said. "We're not going to exploit that narrow form of programming. We want to inform, we want to entertain and we want to make great television, but there's got to be a point to it, as well."

Valid points, but I can't help but think Daniels and Hess sound like the guys who claim they pick up Playboy for the articles only.

Modern nature documentaries would be limited to science classes if it weren't for their ability to appeal to our inner barbarians -- and that's the bloody truth.

njustin@startribune.com • 612-673-7431