Now, This Is a Friday Five After My Own Heart!

1. How many TVs do you have in your home? Two. One in the living room and one in the bedroom.

2. On average, how much TV do you watch in a week? Surprisingly little, considering how obsessively I ramble on about TV here. I actually don't watch very many shows, it's just that the ones I do watch, I watch with extreme dedication! But I'd say, in an average week, I probably only watch about four or five hours, possibly even less. Now, if you include videos and DVDs into your definition of "TV," that number expands hugely.

3. Do you feel that television is bad for young children? Ooh, now, that's a very complex question. Honestly, it depends on the child, and it depends on the TV show, and it depends on how the child interacts with the TV show. I will say that I don't think there's anything intrinsically bad or dangerous about TV. I know that, since I don't have any children myself, many people would say that I don't really have a right to declaim on this matter, and maybe they're right, but I do remember what it's like to be a kid. And I think that, in many respects, we in our society tend to be a little too overprotective of children. What I mean is, kids are often a lot more savvy and a lot more resilient that we tend to give them credit for, and I really do believe that even if an 8-year-old gets hold of the remote control and watches six hours of the Playboy Channel and the All Night Late Nite Blood and Gore Fest on USA, it's probably not going to scar him for life, if his environment is in other ways healthy. Which isn't to say that I don't think it's good to keep an eye on what your kids are watching (and to talk to them about it, because talking to kids is always good!), it's just that I think parents tend to (understandably) over-react to the possibility that their kids will see something they can't handle. There is, of course, another sense in which TV can be bad for kids, because watching 16 straight hours of Gilligan's Island and stupid game shows will turn you into a zombie, at least temporarily. I know this becuase I did it as a kid, on a semi-regular basis. It's a habit that I'm very glad I grew out of, but a lot of people never do. Passive TV-watching -- just sitting there and letting words and images flicker into your eyeballs and take up residence in your brain without having passed through any kind of higher thought processes first -- is not good. On the other hand, TV watching doesn't have to be like that. If a kid is watching an intelligent show with his brain turned on (or, heck, even a stupid show with his brain turned on), then that's a good thing.

4. What TV shows do you absolutely HAVE to watch, and if you miss them, you're heartbroken? Farscape. Sigh. Other than that... I've been making a point of watching Enterprise consistently, to the point that I'll go and borrow a tape from someone if I manage to miss it, but I honestly can't say I'd be anything remotely resembling heartbroken if I did completely miss an episode. At the moment, I'd be pretty pissed off if I missed Firefly and couldn't get it from someone, but I haven't gotten emotionally involved enough in it yet that I'd be heartbroken.

5. If you had the power to create your own television network, what would your line-up look like? I'd buy Farscape! And I'd treat it right! Sigh. Actually, you know, when I was a kid and specialty cable networks were just beginning to come into existence, I used to fantasize about having my own network. It was going to be the Science Fiction Channel. All SF, all the time! I'd have all the great shows that never ran long enough to make it to syndication. (Like Starman. Anybody but me remember that one?) I'd have all the great old British shows, like Blake's 7 and Doctor Who. Indeed, Doctor Who was going to be the backbone of my network, because there's just so darned much of it and it's just so darned cool. Lots of Star Trek, of course -- uncut! And all kinds of SF movies, esepcially the classics like Forbidden Planet and The War of the Worlds and The Day the Earth Stood Still... When the Sci-Fi Channel first came out, it seemed like my teenage daydreams come to life (well, except for the name, which, in retrospect, maybe should have served me as a warning sign). It's gone downhill so rapidly over the last few years, though, that I find I've started daydreaming about what a real science fiction channel would be like again. My channel would have no pseudoscience shows (although shows featuring real science, and particularly shows focusing on the science in science fiction would be most welcome). It would have no cheesy horror movies. I'd be pretty liberal in my definition of science fiction, and would probably be quite willing to program some fantasy or horror, if it was good enough, but the farther from genre SF the stuff was, the better it would have to be. (Forever Knight and Buffy would be welcome on my channel. The Attack of the Giant Killer Snakes crap that Sci-Fi likes to show would not.) I bet I'd put them out of business within a few years. And, oh, I would cackle evilly over my victory...