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What's great about the rumpled, khaki-clad team of Steve and Terri Irwin, hosts of
The Crocodile Hunter, is their complete lack of pretense. Make no mistake: Steve is a goofball, prone to pronouncements ("By crikey!") that plant him squarely, cartoonishly, in his native outback, but he clears through the TV muck quickly, plopping his big-eyed persona behind him readily to deliver his points on the ABCs of wildlife. Mostly, it's the Cs the Irwins dwell on, crocs being the name of their game, but here they diverge. "Aussie Legends" examines all you'd expect: kangaroos, koalas, and wallabies--plus possums, a curious creature called Rufus Betong, and a wombat with an attitude. The emphasis is on marsupials, orphaned ones, especially. At a rehab center, we witness kangaroos on the road to recovery, some of them darting, adorably, in and out of man-made pouches. Then, with the indigenous inhabitants of Steve's stomping grounds surveyed, it's Terri's turn. In "Pacific Northwest," she leads an expedition through the Oregon Trail, where a bullying bison takes a dart to the rump and an aggressive elk gets his antlers sawed off (don't worry, no nerve endings involved). As anyone who watches
The Crocodile Hunter regularly might expect, there's a lot to like here; these are solidly educational shows that don't skimp on fun--the Croc Cam zooms in on a cute-seeming bobcat swiping at the camera, for instance. Still, these shows lack that element of controlled savagery that gives the series its punch. Reptile enthusiasts and couch-bound thrill seekers won't be able to deny amusement, but they'll slither off wishing for more to sink their teeth into, so to speak.
--Tammy La Gorce
