TVSquad

April 24th begins the annual "TV Turnoff Week". For seven days we are to turn off the boob tube and focus on other activities inside and outside our home. For instance, talking to the other members of our family or walking out the front door into that space full of yellow light and green grass. I think we call that the outdoors.

Of course, the purpose of "TV Turnoff Week" is the total opposite of what we do here at TV Squad, which is, um, report on television. So, as a public service to you we present this special episode of The Five: Reasons to not turn off TV during 'TV Turnoff Week'.

You can post comments on TV Squad articles:  We love your comments, even when you say we're messengers of Satan because some of us don't like Pearl Jam. However, if you don't turn the TV on, you're not going to be able to comment on any of the shows that we review. That will make all of us sad, and probably make our bosses even sadder. We'll end up losing our jobs, which will have a domino effect for all of our other blogging sites. Of course, that will cause AOL to go out of business, and the Internet will probably collapse unto itself. Dogs and cats will fight, cows will stop giving milk, and, yadda yadda yadda. We'll eventually be beating each other over the heads with clubs in order to grab the carcass of a dead brontosaurus.

We need something to watch late at night with our newborns: It's 3:30 in the morning. You've been up with your newborn for almost a whole day because, for some reason, he doesn't understand the concept of sleeping between the hours of midnight and 7:00 AM. You're on the 150th lap of the living room marathon and you are about to collapse due to exhaustion. Nothing like a little Who's the Boss, Futurama or What's My Line to keep you interested. If there's nothing on the regular networks there's always 30 Minute Meals on ON DEMAND. Of course, you can always listen to the radio. Pfft, right!

You learn a lot from television:  Television is not the wasteland that many people believe it has been since the first test pattern appeared. Fact of the matter is TV is a wonderful educational tool. For example, if you watch The Weather Channel  you can learn how an earthquake can strike New York City at any time, plunging it into the Atlantic Ocean. If you watch one of the 24-hour news channels, you can learn that bird flu will wipe everyone out across the globe and plunge us into a new Dark Age. If you watch The Jerry Springer Show you learn that, well, The Jerry Springer Show is still on the air, which proves that miracles can happen.

We need to watch Taylor Hicks dance on American Idol:  Taylor Hicks is a tremendous singer and I feel that he could go all the way (then again, he could be gone after I submit this post). However, he couldn't dance himself out of a paper bag (although why he'd want to do that is beyond me). Yet, you can't help but watch him move about the stage while belting out a song. It's almost hypnotic.

And, finally, one of the most important reasons to watch TV:

You'll miss an episode of Lost:  Trying to keep up with an episode of this show is like trying to keep up with a Dennis Miller monologue. There are so many plot threads going on at once that you really need to watch every single episode to have an idea what's happening. If you turn off your TV and miss just one episode, you will lose the entire continuity of the series, which will most likely cause you to lose sleep and stop eating. Then, you'll be in the hospital, which will cause you to lose your job. Your wife will divorce you and move in with the air conditioner repairman, your children will get arrested for using BitTorrent to download episodes of Lazytown, and, yadda yadda yadda, you'll be beating people over the head with clubs so you can grab the dead carcass of a brontosaurus.