Roy Knable (John Ritter) is a struggling Seattle plumbing salesman, former fencing athlete, and couch potato who lives with his neglected wife Helen (Pam Dawber), a vitamin product senior manager. After a fight (which involved Helen smashing the family television screen with one of Roy's fencing trophies as a wake-up call to reality), Mr. Spike (Jeffrey Jones) appears at the couples' door, offering them a new high-tech satellite dish system filled with Number of the Beast channels of programs one cannot view on the four big networks (CBS, NBC, American Broadcasting Company, and Fox Broadcasting Company). What Roy does not know is that Spike (later referred to as "Mephistopheles of the cathode ray") is an emissary from hell who wants to boost the influx of souls by arranging for TV junkies to be killed in the most gruesome and ironic situations imaginable. The 'candidates' are sucked into a hellish television world, called Hellevision, and put through a gauntlet where they must survive a number of satirical versions of sitcoms and movies. If they can survive for 24 hours, they are free to go, but if they get killed, then their souls will become the property of Satan (the latter usually happens).