I thought everything was working fine, Recording programs on schedule, The first time I tried to playback it froze about 20 minutes into a 60 minute program.
Nothing would unfreeze it. I rebooted.

Where I once could hit <Control> <alt> 3 to get to a console session on my monitor I now faced a screen full of log like text oputput. Nothing I did could change the screen. The TV showed the Knoppmyth living room scene with Tux.
The XF86 log sez "no screen found"

I find now that it will no longer respond to
Halt,
reboot
init 6
init 0

How do I get console back?

I'd jump on a networked machine and ssh into the mythtv box.