Well, I'm no TV guy, that's for sure, but here's what I'm thinking...
The recommendation on an old radio is to always replace the caps before firing up, because you could be putting 200-300 volts of B+ on those old caps. If they're shorted, you could be kissing a transformer goodbye.
TV's, now, they might only have a coupla kilovolts running around in there...
If it were me, I wouldn't plug it in, even to a variac. Too many unobtainium parts in there to risk it.
