It is widely believed that television is bad for you. It sucks your time like a giant mental Dyson. It hypnotizes and anesthetizes. It makes you dull. It has made Howie Mandel a rich man. Television has rightfully earned the derisive nicknames "Idiot Box" and "Boob Tube." The latter name is especially apropos to anyone who has ever fallen asleep in front of "The Daily Show" only to wake up at 3 a.m. to the visual and auditory assault of the paid programming for "Girls Gone Wild."

Yet, despite all the evidence that television is bad for a person (and possibly bad for our entire culture), I just can't stop loving it. And this time of year, when the new fall lineup hits the airwaves _ or the satellite dish, as is the case for folks like me in the countryside _ I feel like I'm going back to school.

I get to see all my old friends again after a long summer.

"Scrubs," "The Office," "Grey's Anatomy." Although we don't talk much about how we spent our respective summers, I do get a chance to see everyone's tans and new hairstyles. How much fun is it when an actor comes back after summer break with the most unfortunate hair color possible? Answer: A lot.

And I also get to see all the new kids in class _ the kids who have come from other places and have "exotic" written all over them. I ogle them across the cafetorium, wondering whether new friendships might be possible.

"Did you meet Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip'? It seems kind of stuck-up. It talks a lot about itself. My mom says maybe it's just insecure." "Yeah, I like '30 Rock' a lot better. It's really cool with itself."

And then there are the kids with whom I'll never be all that close. I know that "24" and "Lost" have a lot of friends, but I'm not really one of them. My path just didn't cross enough with them for me to get to know them. When I see them now, it's like trying to catch up in high school with someone you haven't spoken to since the first day of kindergarten. So much has happened _ maybe too much. But hey, wait a minute _ some of the friends we had last year are missing. Where's "Medium"? Is it coming back? And if it does come back, I hope Patricia Arquette doesn't look one pound more (or, less, as the case may be) like Marcia Cross, because I will have to write a nasty letter.

And thanks to cable programming, there are those friends who defy the standard old broadcast schedule. They're like the buddies who live down the block. You see them all the time, so fall isn't such a big event with them.

"Project Runway" and I have been hanging out all summer, and I've never felt more "fabulously glamorous!"

Oh yes, I'm making it work, and then some. And I'm tired of defending the faith in the small screen.

Sure there's some trash on TV.

But for every racially divided "Survivor," there's a "30 Days." For every "Dancing with the Stars," there's a "Sopranos" or "Six Feet Under" or "Deadwood."

I may begin my day with the "Today" show, with all its vacuous content that looks and sounds almost like news. "Johnny Knoxville shows the dangers of riding a go-kart into a pool filled with broken glass in his latest movie. But how safe is your own backyard pool? Plus, easy steps to organizing your garage for fall!" But I end my evening with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who present something that looks and sounds like comedy, but may be the sharpest commentary you can find anywhere on the state of our politics and pop culture.

Television isn't bad, any more than a swimming pool is bad.

Sure, you can fill it with nails and broken glass and zoom into the shards wearing nothing but your underwear a' la Johnny Knoxville's flunkies. But you can also gather around it with a bunch of Rhode's Scholars sipping good wine on a summer's evening. It's all in how you use it.

And for every "Deal or No Deal" Howie Mandel, there is a "Project Runway" Tim Gunn. That alone makes up for many of TV's missteps.

Carry on.

Elizabeth Trever Buchinger is a freelance writer who still thinks the "Lost" island is haunted by the ghost of Bigfoot. She can be reached at VillageWordsmith@hughes.net.