Is Television The Antichrist?

"Rev 13:11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon."
The television is the ugliest appliance in the cabin. Its dark square body suggests no style, no class, no imagination. It takes up space and I am always looking for a way to hide it. If I were an apocalyptic person, I would consider it a candidate for the antichrist, for what else brings so much worthless blather into one’s space. Currently a sheet covers it when not in use. When not it use it is like a plastic and artificial, oversized, useless cube of coal. I have tried to remove it many times, and am successful in the summer, but eventually the long winter evenings beckon I bring it from its hiding place. Now that the sun sets about 5:30, the TV has once again found its place in the living room.
My primary winter viewing is “The Simpson’s”, and it is possible to see three episodes between 6:00 and 7:30 (it is full of metaphor and satire, something I need). I am also a “Law and Order” fan, I don’t know why, it is the only cop show I watch. Then maybe some “news” but I have a hard time believing the reporters, when the line between news and entertainment is commonly erased. Besides, the national and world news is such a mess, I prefer the online papers, something without the graphic and disturbing images. Sometimes I watch the Spokane news, just to make me glad I don’t live in that city. And at times there is something to catch my attention on PBS.
There is the occasional Montana Grizz game I will catch on Saturday if the weather keeps me inside, and maybe a Seahawks game on Sunday.
There is no cable available here, and satellite TV is too expensive for all those commercials. So the stations come in the old fashioned way, off-air. The four or five snowy and at times nearly abstract stations (depending on weather) are more than enough.
The main use of the TV is for DVD’s. A good friend introduced me to “Six Feet Under”, and I am now watching the fourth season. I don’t rent movies, because of the infrequent trips to town, but have a supply of borrowed movies. The other thing the TV is good for are lectures from “The Teaching Company”, I have watched a 24 part series on the Impressionist Painters, and another on the life and times of Mark Twain, and now I am watching a fascinating course on argumentation.
Either way, the “box” does eat time, And I know I use it as an excuse for not reading. But on those long evenings, what else is there for a hermit to do in the cold dark nights of winter?