• How many TVs do you have in your home? – Only one. Don’t ask how many computers we have in our home, though.
  
• On average, how much TV do you watch in a week? – Maybe a dozen hours, give or take. I’ve been watching less and less over time, and soon we’re going to have our cable turned off (save $50 a month? you bet!) so it’ll probably drop down to almost no TV intake in a big hurry.
  
• Do you feel that television is bad for young children? – I feel that unsupervised, unmonitored television time is bad for children of any age. I also feel that there is age-appropriate television programming out there, albeit mostly on kid-oriented cable channels. As long as the TV doesn’t become the all-day babysitter, I don’t have a problem with young kids watching.
  
• What TV shows do you absolutely HAVE to watch, and if you miss them, you’re heartbroken? – There’s nothing on TV that qualifies anymore. I used to be religious about a number of shows, but I now realize that the world really will go on if I miss an episode here or there. And, damn Sci-Fi Channel for dumping Farscape. Damn them all to hell.
  
• If you had the power to create your own television network, what would your line-up look like? – You know, what’s weird about this question is that I was thinking about exactly such a scenario this morning. Wow. Anyway… my thinking was something along the lines of “Sci-Fi Channel Done Right.” We would pick up as many quality programs as possible, and also help produce long-form quality specials and series. (Remember, this is an imaginary scenario. Real television stations do not operate on pure motives like “quality of content.”) There would be no schlock-horror or cheesy low-budget cyberpunk crapola. When we commit to a series, we would really commit to it, with a firm timeline so the show’s creators can actually tell their story. By the same token, we would be very careful about signing new, open-ended programming. Oh yeah, and no goddamned ballroom-dance instructors masquerading as psychics. No pseudo-documentary alien-abduction crap, either. Hmm. Yeah, I think that about covers it.
  

Friday Five