I have a situation like many described.
Retina Macbook Pro; was using Mavericks 10.9.0 or .1 (forget which); plug in the HDMI cable to a large HDTV and the Macbook Pro. The HDTV gets nothing. The Macbook Pro goes black, then shows the screen in a new resolution, with icons and desktop picture adjusting--then within a second, black again, then adjusting again, then black again and adjusting again, so on ad infinitum. Leave it on long enough and the desktop picture either shifts to something I had set for a non-mirrored desktop, or it just goes gray. One time when I unplugged the HDMI cable, the laptop went black and I had to force-restart.
I tried starting with a different resolution, tried turning mirroring off or on before plugging in the cable (after plugging in, nothing is possible as things shift too quickly for the cursor to appear). Tried restarting, tried restarting with the HDMI plugged in. Tried using a different TV set. Tried zapping the PRAM and resetting the SMC. Nada. Called Apple support a few times, their best advice was that the 10.9.3 upgrade was corrupted, and I should back up my data and do an Archive & Install, which will have to wait until I got free time. See if that works.
http://youtu.be/OZtyNUWFm8E