SO I taught my non-technical wife a trick. Our TV was acting funny and she was trying to sort it out with the remote. She managed to geet the set into a condition with a blank blue screen, and the controls seemed not to respond. "Maybe the remote died," she mused... and looked at the end. I told her the LED there was infra-red and not visible. BUT, the cameras in cell phones respond to IR light and just presents it as red. SO I had her aim the remote at her phone cam and press the button. Sure enough, she saw the red LED blinking. SO remote is working.
Eventually just pushing lots of buttons made it come back. But at least now she gets the junior technician pin.