Young men leap head-first from a 70-foot tower in a potentially deadly ritual; a girl tattoos her face before marriage as part of her transition to womanhood; a 70-year-old man participates in a bloodletting ceremony.

People who deal with death for occupational, cultural and sometimes questionable reasons.

People who dwell on the fringes of society.

The sexual customs and age of consent varies in countries around the globe.

Measuring people's worth by the ability to overcome the fight-or-flight instinct.

Many traditional cultures require boys to pass through initiations of pain and fear in order to become men.

Life collides with fantasy.

Nontraditional weddings; a naked wedding in Jamaica; dog wedding; a young man kidnaps his bride.

Looking at the ways people change their appearance for psychological, aesthetic or other reasons.

In one married couple, each partner has switched gender; one person self-refers as a hybrid -- neither male nor female.

Love and what attracts the opposite sex can differ from one society to another.

The lengths people will go to to change their looks.

Unconventional relationships including a woman in love with a man three times her height and a marriage made up of three partners.

People who take collecting into bizarre territories.

Unique matches include a fruitarian couple who live off the fruit they find in dumpsters.

While some societies wage war on drugs, some embrace them for their medicinal or spiritual benefits.

Exploring the far reaches of some people's definition of sex and love.

The lives of those haunted by addiction include a young boy hooked on video games, a woman addicted to anonymous sex and a man addicted to shopping.

In Minneapolis, a team of heavy-duty house cleaners tackles a truly filthy, foreclosed house with one of the most disgusting basements ever.

People in love with inmates serving time include a Texas inmate in solitary confinement who is married with the help of a radio host as the surrogate groom and a man serving life for murder who meets and marries a woman over the Internet.

People whose passion for collecting crosses the line into obsession.

"Naked Science" strips away the layers of a scientific investigation into one of the big mysteries of our time, revealing through expert analysis realistic scenarios that either confirm or deny long-held assumptions and misconceptions.

This award-winning series presents compelling untold stories and covers a wide array of provocative subjects. "Explorer" aired for 25 years -- the longest-running documentary series in cable TV history -- before being relaunched in 2015 after a five-year hiatus. Each monthly episode of the new "Explorer" takes a similar deep dive inside a story from the pages of a recent National Geographic magazine issue, taking viewers not only to the most remote corners of the globe but also to the furthest reaches of the mind and deepest crevices of history -- on urgent missions of discovery.

Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman explores the meaning of life, God, and many big questions in between in an effort to understand how religion has evolved and shaped society. A different divine subject is covered in each hourlong episode, titles of which include "Creation," "The Devil Inside," "Afterlife," "Apocalypse," and "Who Is God?" To explore these topics, host and narrator Freeman visits nearly 20 cities in seven countries to see some of the world's greatest religious sites, among them Jerusalem's Wailing Wall, India's Bodhi Tree, Mayan temples in Guatemala, and the pyramids of Egypt, and he immerses himself in religious experiences and rituals. "In some places I found answers, and others led to more questions. The constant through it all is that we're all looking to be part of something bigger than us. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that we certainly are," Freeman says.

Meeting people from all cultures whose lives are shaped by different fundamental forces.

Julia Child melded TV and food 50 or so years ago. Now with scads of celebrity chefs, cooking shows, and networks devoted to it, cuisine is even more popular. National Geographic Channel's six-hour miniseries salutes its history, science and culture. Each episode tackles a central theme: revolutionaries, meat, sugar, seafood, junk food, and grains -- with stories and reflections by a smorgasbord of chefs, authors, scientists, etc. Interviewees include Padma Lakshmi, Nigella Lawson, Simon Majumdar, Rachael Ray, Marcus Samuelsson, Anna Boiardi and Graham Elliot.

Cameras follow the action along Arizona's Sonoran Desert, one of the busiest border crossings in the country, as officers and agents of U.S. Customs and Border Protection fight terrorism, apprehend drug smugglers and intercept people entering the United States illegally. The series also embeds with Customs and Border Protection, and with local law enforcement, as units patrol near and on the border in South Texas.

Advanced computer graphics, forensic science, eyewitness accounts, interviews with experts, archival footage and re-enactments piece together in great detail the events that led to some of the biggest disasters of modern time.

Despite cameras and guards monitoring their every move, some prisoners are daring enough to test the system and execute a breakout. Told from the perspectives of both the escapees and the law enforcement teams tracking them, this series documents some of recent history's high-profile jailbreaks and the various methods officials use to outsmart the criminals, leading to their eventual recapture.