Garden of Eden

Nobody other than National Geographic does as consistently good work with glossy nature documentaries as NOVA. In Garden of Eden, viewers are whisked away to the Seychelles Islands, possessed of exotic flora and fauna, and once thought to have been the historical site of the Garden of Eden. While the reason for the islands' strikingly different plants and animals probably owes more to the Seychelles' isolation--1,000 miles from anywhere else--than to divine habitation, viewers can plainly see that the islands remain a paradise. Whale sharks, coconut crabs and scads of lizards provide lively entertainment, captured here with great visuals and understated, erudite narration. Packing a lot of content about its Indian Ocean subject into a snappy TV-friendly 60-minute format, this beautifully photographed documentary is recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (M. Tribby)